Mids businesses secure £1m from online lender
Online loan provider Funding Circle has lent 30 Midlands businesses a total of more than £1m over the last year, it said.
Forty per cent of Midlands businesses secured the funding for growth reasons while half required funding for working capital, it added.
Businesses borrowed between £5,000 and £100,000 per investment.
Of the Midlands-based businesses which borrowed money, about one in six were in the manufacturing and engineering sector (17 per cent). Other sectors such as transport, professional services and retail also secured funding, said the lender.
James Meekings, co-founder of Funding Circle, said: "SMEs have been discarded by the banks for far too long. In many cases, they're being unnecessarily turned down for funding and although this is true for some of the businesses coming to us for funding, the largest proportion are simply disillusioned by the banks and unwilling to pay over the odds for funding, or being put off by the arduous application process."
