CrowdProperty sets out three-year growth strategy
CrowdProperty is set to use its forthcoming Seedrs fundraise to help it deliver a new three-year growth strategy.
In a shareholder letter seen by Peer2Peer Finance News, the peer-to-peer lending platform outlined its plan to build “a truly scalable development lender”, adding that it would be taking a cautious approach to growth due to the economic climate.
The letter, dated 8 February, detailed CrowdProperty’s fourth equity fundraising round on private investment platform Seedrs, which is expected to launch imminently.
“This fundraise is to ensure that we fully fund the three-year strategy, with the equity capital raised being put alongside reinvestment of profits and cashflows from the operating business and working capital optimisation measures, meaning that this equity capital raise will be smaller than the last (and less dilutive), but overall, more will be invested in strategic growth,” the shareholder update said.
CrowdProperty last raised money on Seedrs in August 2021, collecting £1.8m from 793 investors, and surpassing its £800,000 target.
The shareholder update said it would be applying greater scrutiny around the loans it writes, and around valuation, cost and credit policy. It also said it had developed “ever stronger portfolio management systems, processes and governance”.
It said these principles were “core to building a truly scalable development lender” and were embedded in its newly defined three-year growth strategy, which would focus on strong people and culture, scalable systems and processes, robust governance and control, and exceptional customer relationship management.
In the last 12 months, CrowdProperty has grown development facilities agreed by 51 per cent, despite a slow fourth quarter of 2022. The first three quarters of the year delivered a year-on-year growth rate of 76 per cent.
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Revenue grew by 41 per cent and the firm forecasts a third consecutive year of profit, despite significant ongoing investment to build infrastructure for future scalability.
Last month the lender received £400m of applications for development finance and is currently processing £870m of facilities in the active pipeline.
Having paid back £168m to institutional and private investor capital sources with an average first-charge secured return of 8.07 per cent, the lender is in the process of closing further institutional capital sources.