Flender is tapping into the €3bn lending among friends market in the UK and Ireland. Image: Kunst Bilder/Shutterstock
Flender, a Dublin-based peer-to-peer lending start-up, has raised more than €453,000 (£382,000) in a crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs.
The Flender platform, which is going live in the UK and Ireland in January, is the creation of technology entrepreneurs Kristjan Koik, Oli Cavanagh and Jeremy Davies.
They have been involved in other successful tech start-ups, most recently DocLink, which helps doctors and their teams collaborate digitally and securely; and Instacoach, a video analysis platform used by tennis, golf, cricket and swimming coaches around the world.
Flender is working towards a €593,000 (£500,000) target on Seedrs and is (at the time of writing) 76pc of the way there.
On day one of the crowdfunding campaign, 20 investors from five countries bought into the Flender peer-to-peer proposition on Seedrs, investing an average of €20,000 each.
Around €350,000 of angel funding was also raised in early 2016 from investors including Mark Roden, Philip Grant and Rupert Horner to fund initial research and development of the unique finance platform.
With a little help from Flenders
Flender founders from left: Oli Cavanagh, Jeremy Davies and Kristjan Koik. Image: Tadhg Conway
Flender is a peer-to-peer finance platform which helps businesses and consumers to borrow and lend money through their existing networks.
Businesses can leverage their customer base and strengthen loyalty, while friends become part of each other’s success.
“The social lending market among friends, family and business connections has never been formalised, which is crazy when you consider that this is a market worth over €3bn a year in Ireland and the UK,” explained Kristjan Koik, managing director of Flender.
“Asking people you know for money – and lending to them – is an awkward thing to do and is certainly an unreliable means of finance. Whether it’s to fund further study, grow a business, or to finance home improvements, Flender will let people borrow from and lend to others with whom they have a connection, much more easily and much more reliably.
“For individuals, there is the satisfaction of helping others while earning more interest than a standard savings account. Businesses too can have access to funds faster, at very flexible rates – so everyone wins,” Koik said.
