Funding Circle and Waterfall Asset Management announce £1bn lending partnership

●    The partnership will leverage the platform's machine learning capabilities to deploy new funding to UK small businesses over a two-year period

Funding Circle, the UK's largest small business loan platform, and Waterfall, a leading institutional asset manager, today announce a lending partnership that will provide £1bn of new funding to small businesses.

The partnership leverages Funding Circle's technology and distribution platform to deploy new funding to UK small businesses, continuing Waterfall's support for UK SMEs.

More than a decade of investment and innovation in Funding Circle's technology and data capabilities has created powerful machine learning models. These provide Waterfall with a highly efficient and cost-effective mechanism to deploy capital to the real economy.

Funding Circle's market-leading and unparalleled instant decision capabilities enable small businesses to apply for finance in an average of six minutes, with lending decisions in as little as nine seconds. This seamless functionality is helping provide small businesses with fast and simple access to finance, allowing them to grow and power the economy.

Waterfall will lend through the platform alongside a wide range of investors, including banks, asset management companies, insurance companies, government-backed entities, individuals and funds.

Lisa Jacobs, CEO at Funding Circle said:

"We are proud of our four-year partnership with Waterfall which will continue to provide tens of thousands of small businesses with the finance they need to drive the post-pandemic recovery. It's great to see a wide range of investors leveraging Funding Circle's machine learning and technology capabilities to lend to SMEs at both speed and scale."

Henrik Malmer, Managing Director at Waterfall, said:

"We are pleased to continue our partnership with Funding Circle and to support SME lending in the UK. We have been impressed by Funding Circle's resilience throughout the Covid crisis and believe Funding Circle's platform and technology will be effective in enabling investors to access this asset class and supporting borrowers in the post-pandemic recovery."

Waterfall's initial £1bn investment in 2018 included multiple securitisations. These public capital market transactions are further recognition of the platform's ability to open up deep and diverse pools of capital to small businesses, creating more choice and competition in the small business lending market.

ENDS

For more information

[email protected] / +44 (0) 203 667 2245

About Funding Circle

Funding Circle is the UK's largest loan platform for SMEs. Founded in 2010, its market-leading and unparalleled instant decision lending technology enables small businesses to apply for finance in an average of six minutes, with lending decisions in as little as nine seconds. A wide range of investors are utilising this technology and distribution platform to lend c. £14 billion to approximately 120,000 businesses globally. This is providing small businesses with the fast and simple access finance they need to grow and power the economy. In 2021, lending through Funding Circle's UK platform is estimated to have contributed £7.2bn to GDP and supported 100,000 jobs.