Loop Financial Inc., dba Lending Loop, has officially announced the closing of a $2 million convertible debenture financing led by MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF). Other investors include Laurier Startup Fund and a group of finance and technology investors.
New funds will be used to roll-out its new automated investing product, Auto-Lend, and continue to grow its presence as Canada’s premier peer-to-peer lending platform. The company also plans to use the funds to help with new product expansion later in the year.
Lending Loop raised funding through the issuance of series payment dependent notes. The company said its platform has facilitated over $7 million dollars of financing to small businesses across the country with the help of its growing community of over 9,500 investors.
“For far too long, people have assumed the only place to put their hard-earned savings was with a big bank,” said Cato Pastoll, co-founder and CEO of Lending Loop. “The release of Auto-Lend means we now have an incredibly simple way for all Canadians to automatically invest their money in this highly attractive asset class.”
Led by co-founders Cato Pastoll and Brandon Vlaar, the company is on a mission to democratize financial services, making it work for the many, not the few. It believes it can do so by operating under a system of radical transparency which is why it has also launched a new page where it makes its lending data publicly accessible at lendingloop.ca/statistics.
Following the closing of the recent round of funding, Lending Loop also added two industry veterans, Mike Kitchen and Clive Kinross, to its board of directors. Kitchen and Kinross add a wealth of experience from the traditional banking, online lending and online marketplace sectors.
photo credit: Lending Loop