Funding Circle Reviews: What You Need To Know

What is Funding Circle?

Funding Circle is an international peer-to-peer lender that specializes in small business lending. Founded in the U.K in 2010 by successful business owners whose loan applications had been rejected by numerous banks, Funding Circle has now lent more than $ 2 billion to over 15,000 businesses in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. As a peer-to-peer lender, Funding Circle not only makes loans available to small businesses, it also provides an investment opportunity to accredited investors.

Company Location

In the United States, Funding Circle is headquartered at 747 Front Street, San Francisco, California 94111. Their United Kingdom address is 71 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4AY. However, as an online lender the most important address is the URL:https://www.fundingcircle.com/

Impartial Funding Circle Reviews

Better Business Bureau

Current Rating: A+

Accreditation: 12/23/2013

Filed Complaints: 5 within the last 12 months

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Featured In

New York Times

Dara Kennedy, the founder of Ayla Beauty, borrowed $50,000 from Funding Circle in the fall of 2013. “If I went to a bank, the loan size that they wanted to provide was much larger than I needed,” Ms. Kennedy said. The loan has to be repaid in three years and has an interest rate of 10 percent. Ms. Kennedy has personally guaranteed the loan and assets in Ayla Beauty also secure it. She got the loan in three weeks. “It was pretty fast and seamless,” Ms. Kennedy said.

Techcrunch

Fundera, Funding Circle And Others Introduce The Small Business Borrowers’ Bill Of Rights

“When you make a successful, transparent loan to a business, you can see them grow to a place where they have additional credit needs,” said Sam Hodges, Funding Circle co-founder. “If you keep things in balance, you can grow with your customers and succeed together. But if you’re lacking principles of transparency, and trapping borrowers in a cycle of high-cost, short-term loans, it becomes a race to the bottom.”

Funding Circle reviews make it clear that Funding Circle is offering a needed service at a reasonable price.

What Funding Circle Offers

  • Term Business Loans at fixed interest rate
  • Rates starting at 5.49%
  • Loan amounts from $25,000-$500,000
  • Loan terms from 1-5 years
  • Funding in under 10 days
  • Investment opportunities for accredited investors

Which Company Do We Recommend?

If you are looking for a loan for your business, or for an investment opportunity, besides Funding Circle, you should check out Lending Club, one of the major Funding Circle Competitors.

Lending Club is the largest peer-to-peer lender in the United States. It has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. While Funding Circle requires that its borrowers secure their loan with assets of the business as well as sign a personal guaranty, Lending Club loans are unsecured, meaning it is more complicated for Lending Club to go to court seize your assets than it is for Funding Circle to do so. If your business runs into short-term cash flow problems, having an unsecured loan vs a secured loan could be the difference between receiving collection calls and finding your assets repossessed. While Funding Circle loans start at $25,000, Lending Club will loan you as little as $10,000 as business loan, or, if you take out a personal loan, as little as $1,000.

While Funding Circle reviews are generally positive, Lending Club has business owner reviews on its website or you can check out these:

Clearly Lending Club customers are generally happy with their loans.

If you are a potential investor, Lending Club offers you a greater ability to diversify your investment as the minimum investment on any one loan with Lending Club is $25, and with Funding Circle it is $500–presuming that you are allowed to invest at all. While Lending Club is open to most middle-class investors, Funding Circle only allows accredited investors ( a/k/a rich people) to invest.

Want to learn more about Lending Club?

 

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