Zopa closes bank-building fundraise at £60m

The first stage of the fundraise brought in £44m earlier this year.

The world’s original peer-to-peer lender Zopa has closed its largest fundraise to date. The firm has raised a total of £60m from a mix of new and existing investors.

The fundraise was first revealed in August, at which time £44m had been secured. Zopa was forced to disclose the round prior to its closing due to the involvement of two listed investors, TruFin and Augmentum.

Zopa has not disclosed the identity of the round’s other investors but confirmed for AltFi that a total of seven new and existing investors took part. Futhermore, AltFi can exclusively reveal that equity crowdfunding platform VentureFounders contributed to the fundraise.

The firm's valuation has not been disclosed.

Zopa said in a statement that the funds will go towards the capital requirements of its next generation bank, which has been two years in the making. The firm added that it expects the bank to launch ‘soon’.  

Jaidev Janardana (pictured), CEO of Zopa, commented: “This new funding takes us a step closer to realising our vision of being the best place for money in the UK. Having served half a million customers to date, Zopa is set to redefine the finance industry once again through our next generation bank to meet a broader set of UK customers’ financial needs.”

Zopa was the world’s first peer-to-peer lender, launched as long ago as 2005. It has lent almost £3.8bn to UK consumers to date, according to AltFi Data.