SoFi, Prosper Investor Bets on UK Online Lender

Capital One-backed QED investors is putting more money where their money is — in online lending. After taking bets on Prosper Loans and SoFi, the venture capital firm crossed the pond to invest in UK-based student loans lender Future Finance.

The Dublin-based company raised $171 million from marquee investors like Blackstone Group and QED investors in addition to the existing credit facility with Goldman Sachs and will use $100 million towards selling more loans. The two-year old online lender has received over 37,000 applications to date since 2014.

The injection “will enable many more students in the U.K. to access higher education and invest in their future careers,” Chief Executive Officer Brian Norton said, according to Bloomberg. In a video interview, Norton pointed out that the affordable government loans, although great, aren’t enough.

And this may have come at an opportune time when the UK government said last month that it will continue to provide considerable subsidies for higher education including underwriting student loans, on one hand and making it a criminal offense to default on student loans on the other.