Landbay hosts closed crowdfunding round on Seedrs

Property peer-to-peer lending platform goes into overfunding on latest equity crowdfunding round.

Landbay, the buy-to-let mortgage lending platform, is hosting a £1.5m equity crowdfunding round on Seedrs. The firm is already into overfunding, with more than £1.7m invested.

The fundraise values Landbay at £18.3m, up from £10.3m at the time of its last fundraise in March 2016. This latest Seedrs campaign is a closed round for existing investors. Landbay recently took on new investment from a number of angel investors, and so is obliged under pre-emption rules to offer its Seedrs investors the chance to follow on. But the firm declined to comment on the size of the new angel investment, or the identity of the investors. 

Since completing its first fundraising campaign on Seedrs in January of 2014, Landbay has staged a number of follow-on rounds on Seedrs (including a now-converted “convertible” round). The firm also clinched a share of a £1m Zoopla investment, which was spread across four UK “proptech” companies. Trussle, FixFlow and PropertyDetective joined Landbay as recipients.

While investors will depend on an exit opportunity in order to realise any returns, Landbay looks to have been a real success on paper. Its first Seedrs campaign carried a valuation of a little over £600k.

“Following new investment in our business we have opened up a private round on Seedrs,” said co-founder and CEO John Goodall. “This round is open only to existing shareholders from previous Seedrs rounds, allowing them to exercise pre-emption rights should they wish to do so. Landbay is currently in a high growth phase, evidenced by the recent launch of our Innovative Finance ISA and a new range of competitively priced buy-to-let mortgages for professional landlords. This fund raising round is in support of that continued growth.”

Landbay received its full authorisation from the FCA in December of last year, paving the way for the launch of its Innovative Finance ISA in February.