Ashcombe advises Zopa on £32m equity funding round
Ashcombe Advisers is pleased to announce that it has advised Zopa, the leading peer-to-peer consumer lending business, on a £32m funding round led by Wadhawan Global Capital PvT Ltd ("WGC") and Northzone, a European venture capital fund. Ashcombe introduced WGC and advised Zopa on the terms of its investment.
WGC is leading financial services group based in India with a primary focus on lending, investment and insurance platforms and which are some of the top brands in India. It has more than 9m customers, served through a network of ca 550 branches and manages ca £20bn of assets. A WGC director will join the board of Zopa.
The additional investment will finance Zopa’s continued growth and product development, and support the build-out of the company’s bank infrastructure in preparation for the submission of its bank licence application later this year. It follows signficant growth at Zopa over the last 12 months. Since June 2016 Zopa has facilitated £800m+ in personal loans to UK consumers, and late last year became the first European P2P lender to have originated more than £2bn of loans.
Ashcombe has now worked on 27 transactions in financial services since 2014, involving 8 sell-side mandates, 11 buy-side mandates, 3 debt financings, 4 equity financings and one balance sheet restructuring.