London-based property financing and investment platform, LendInvest, has raised £500M (approx €566M) from JP Morgan in future mortgage originations. Commenting on this development, Rod Lockhart, CEO at LendInvest, says, “This transaction is yet another example of the growing interest from large global institutions in UK Fintech, and importantly, another milestone for LendInvest.”
Use of the funds
The raised capital will enable LendInvest to finance its buy-to-let properties following its sale of a £125M (approx €141.1M) mortgage portfolio to JP Morgan in September 2020.
“Working with JP Morgan puts us in a stronger position than ever to serve our customers in what will come to be a hugely important year for the industry. We look forward to collaborating with the team there as we continue to tailor our unique offering for landlords in an ever-changing environment,” adds Rod Lockhart.
Everything about LendInvest
The fintech company was founded in 2008 by Christian Faes and Ian Thomas, and claims to be the UK’s leading platform for property finance. It offers short-term, development and buy-to-let mortgages to intermediaries, landlords, and developers.
The company’s proprietary technology and user experience are designed to make it simpler for both borrowers and investors to access property finance. “It is our mission to make property finance simple. We build and use our own technology to make the process of getting a mortgage simpler, reducing the form-filling, increasing the speed to get a ‘yes’, and creating a better loan experience for our borrowers and intermediaries,” the company mentions on its website.
To date, LendInvest has lent over £3B (approx €3.39B) of short term, development and buy-to-let mortgages. Its funders and investors include pension funds, insurers and global institutions such as HSBC, Citigroup, and National Australia Bank.
Pioneer lenders in the UK
LendInvest claims that it was the first lender to provide an entirely online buy-to-let mortgage product for portfolio landlords in the UK, and has remained open for business despite Covid-19-related economic crisis.
In addition, it was also the first non-bank prime buy-to-let lender to introduce a desktop valuation product when valuers were unable to physically inspect properties.
Business despite Covid-19 economic crisis
Despite the Covid-19 lockdowns, LendInvest has continued to deliver strong growth; it has reported annual profitable growth since 2015. Between April and September last year, LendInvest’s loan book grew 27 per cent to £1.4M (approx €1.5M) while earnings before interest and tax rose to £6.2M (approx €7M) during that period.
Eric Wragge, Managing Director in Securitised Products at JP Morgan, believes, “There’s a huge amount of innovation going on in the UK Fintech space, which is taking place both in spite of, and in response to, the broader context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“LendInvest is an exciting business with ambitious plans for the future, and our Securitised Products team has been pleased to work with them to provide capacity for over half a billion pounds of new mortgage lending,” he adds.
Prior to this, in August 2019, the company had raised €216M investment from the National Australia Bank.
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