Blend Network secures £10m of seed funding

By Bridging Loan Directory 17th November 2018

LONDON – 17^th December 2018. BLEND Network, the peer-to-peer property lending platform that launched earlier this year to make the property market more efficient while delivering double-digit return to investors, has completed £10m of late-seed round of financing. Some of the world’s top business figures and most well-known private investors as well as leading family offices led the investment round.

The round, which was well oversubscribed, saw a combination of equity to scale the business, and commitments to lend on the platform. This was supported by a number of notable investors including Cyrus Ardalan, former Vice Chairman of Barclays and current Chairman of OakNorth Bank and Citigroup Global Markets Ltd, the Family Office of former CEO and current Chairman of Publicis Group Maurice Levy and Jean-Phillipe Blochet, co-founder of Brevan Howard, one of the leading “macro hedge funds” which at its peak had $40bn in assets under management.

This fresh investment will help BLEND Network aggressively expand its deal underwriting and marketing efforts, as well as broaden and accelerate product development with the aim of establishing itself as the number one peer-to-peer lending platform by connecting lenders and borrowers in the property space.

BLEND Network is a peer-to-peer property lending platform where lenders can invest in property-secured loans at an average 12% return p.a. Private lenders are able to co-invest from £1,000 with very sophisticated high net worth lenders in the same deal, in a move that is leading to the increasing ‘democratisation’ of investing.

Prior to this era of financial liberalisation, retail investors had difficulty accessing the more exlcusive deals only available to institutional investors offering very large sums. This platform will allow anyone with discretionary capital to co-invest in deals, greatly widening the investment population able to put capital into the high profile deals, whilst also allowing small and medium sized entrepreneurs to access finance to fund their projects.

Cyrus Ardalan, Chairman of OakNorth Bank and Citigroup Global Markets Ltd, commented:

“BLEND Network takes peer-to-peer lending to a new level, providing investors with a highly transparent and innovative platform.”

Yann Murciano, Chief Executive at BLEND Network, commented:

“We are very excited to get the support from such high-profile investors. Each of our new investors brings a lot of experience to the table. Furthermore, they are all lenders on our deals, which we believe is the right thing to do in order to ensure that we maintain the quality of the deals on our platform. This year, we have proven the model. Next year, it’s all about scaling it while maintaining the high level of enhanced due diligence for which we pride ourselves.”

Roxana Mohammadian-Molina, Chief Strategy Officer at BLEND Network, commented:

“We are thrilled to have a strong core group of investors who have each been highly successful individually and believe in our product offering. They believe in the model and they believe in the management. This helps generate trust in what we are building at BLEND Network.”