Zencap

Last updated
Zencap Global Services
Type Private
Industry Financial services
Software
FounderDr. Christian Grobe, Dr. Matthias Knecht
Headquarters
Berlin
,
Germany
Area served
Germany, Spain, The Netherlands
Products Peer-to-peer lending
Number of employees
65
Parent Rocket Internet
Website Official website OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Zencap was a German company, operating a peer-to-peer lending platform, which allowed private savers to lend money directly to small and medium-sized businesses in Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. [1] Using the crowdfunding model, the company based in Berlin, Germany [2] aimed to create a direct link between private lenders and small businesses seeking loans. [1] [3] [4] [5] As of December 2014, Zencap had facilitated 5 million Euro in loans to small and medium-sized firms. [6]

Contents

In October 2015, the company was merged with Funding Circle, being active on UK and US. [7] [8]

Origin

The company, based in Berlin, was founded in March 2014 [9] [10] by Christian Grobe and Matthias Knecht, with support from Rocket Internet. [1] [9] [11]

Lending

The business model resembled the US peer-to-peer lending platform Lending Club and UK-based company Funding Circle. [12] [ failed verification ] Zencap facilitated small business loans from 10,000 to 250,000 euros. [1] Zencap determined whether the borrower was creditworthy and assigned a credit grade that determined the payable interest rate and the fees. Zencap itself charged borrowers a 1% to 4.5% origination fee. The loan period ranged between 6 and 60 months while the loan could be repaid without an early repayment fee at any time. [13] Conditions varied between countries.

Der Tagesspiegel quoted founder Christian Grobe, "We are very strict with the risk assessment." [1] Once approved, businesses posted their loan request on the Zencap marketplace, where private lenders were able to choose which businesses they wanted to lend money to. [14]

Funding Circle acquisition of Zencap

In October 2015, Zencap was acquired by UK based Funding Circle, another lending platform in Europe. [15] Zencap was active in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. [15] The merge made Funding Circle one of the main peer to business lending leaders in Europe.

See also

Related Research Articles

Prosper Marketplace, Inc. is a San Francisco, California-based financial services company. Prosper Funding LLC, one of its subsidiaries, operates Prosper.com, a website where individuals can request to borrow money, open a credit card, or invest in personal loans.

Rocket Mortgage, LLC is a mortgage loan provider. It is headquartered in the One Campus Martius building in the financial district of Downtown Detroit, Michigan. In January 2018, the company became the largest overall retail lender in the U.S.. Unlike other large mortgage lenders that depend on deposits, Rocket Mortgage relies on wholesale funding to make its loans and uses online applications rather than a branch system. Amrock and One Reverse Mortgage are also part of the Rocket Mortgage Family of Companies. The company closed more than $400 billion of mortgage volume across all 50 states from 2013 through 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mittelstand</span> Small and medium-sized enterprises in German-speaking countries

Mittelstand commonly refers to a group of stable business enterprises in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that have proved successful in enduring economic change and turbulence. The term is difficult to translate and may cause confusion for non-Germans. It is usually defined as a statistical category of small and medium-sized enterprises with annual revenues up to 50 million Euro and a maximum of 500 employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peer-to-peer lending</span> Practice of lending money

Peer-to-peer lending, also abbreviated as P2P lending, is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders with borrowers. Peer-to-peer lending companies often offer their services online, and attempt to operate with lower overhead and provide their services more cheaply than traditional financial institutions. As a result, lenders can earn higher returns compared to savings and investment products offered by banks, while borrowers can borrow money at lower interest rates, even after the P2P lending company has taken a fee for providing the match-making platform and credit checking the borrower. There is the risk of the borrower defaulting on the loans taken out from peer-lending websites.

LendingClub is a financial services company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was the first peer-to-peer lender to register its offerings as securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and to offer loan trading on a secondary market. At its height, LendingClub was the world's largest peer-to-peer lending platform. The company reported that $15.98 billion in loans had been originated through its platform up to December 31, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zopa</span> British financial services company

Zopa Ltd. is a British financial services company which offers deposit accounts, personal loans and credit cards. It began as the world's first peer-to-peer lending company in 2005 and gained a full banking licence in 2020. The peer-to-peer side of its business closed in December 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ares Management</span> American asset management company

Ares Management Corporation is a global alternative investment manager operating in the credit, private equity and real estate markets. The company was founded in 1997 with additional offices across North America, Europe, and Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Funding Circle</span> Commercial lender

Funding Circle is a commercial lender. Originally it was a peer-to-peer lending marketplace that allowed the public to lend money directly to small and medium-sized businesses. Through this exchange businesses access lower costs of financing than they would get at a bank and the public are able to become lenders and in doing so make a return on their capital. It closed its lending option to "retail investors" between 2020 and 2022, and then announced, in March 2022, that it had made the closure permanent.

RateSetter is a British personal loan provider, founded in 2009 as one of the pioneers of peer-to-peer lending. The London-based company traded in the United Kingdom and through a locally-owned and run business in Australia. The UK business was acquired by Metro Bank in September 2020, leading to closure of the peer-to-peer products in April 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assetz Capital</span>

Assetz Capital is a British company which makes property-secured loans to businesses. It was established in 2012 as a peer-to-peer or "marketplace" lender which allowed private and institutional investors to lend money directly to small businesses (SMEs) and property developers. In December 2022 it became solely funded by institutional capital for new lending.

Dianrong is an online marketplace lending company headquartered in Shanghai, China. Named the “Lending Club of China”, the company was founded in 2012 by Soul Htite, co-founder and former CTO at Lending Club, who joined efforts with Kevin Guo, a PE fund partner and a lawyer from Shanghai to create a company similar to Lending Club in China.

Lendico was a multinational company, operating a peer-to-peer lending platform. It was taken over by Dutch bank ING Groep in early 2018 and now operates as a subsidiary. The international online marketplace for business and consumer lending was founded in December 2013 by the incubator and venture capitalist, Rocket Internet. After launching in Germany, the company expanded into Spain, Poland, Austria, South Africa, the Netherlands and Brazil. Using the crowdfunding model, the company based in Berlin, Germany, directly connects investors and private and business borrowers. Lendico is led by Friedrich Hubel and co-founder Clemens Paschke. Currently, Lendico Brazil still exists but is an independent company from Lendico Global Services.

Peer-to-peer insurance is a reciprocity insurance contract through the Collaborative consumption concept.

Harmoney is an online direct personal lender that operates across Australia and New Zealand. The company was established in 2014 to introduce peer-to-peer lending to New Zealand. Harmoney provides risk-priced, unsecured personal loans up to $70,000 and has issued NZD $2 billion worth of loans as of March 2021.

Peerform is a peer-to-peer lending company based in New York City, which matches prime and near-prime qualified borrowers in the United States to accredited high net worth and institutional investors on its online platform. Its algorithm to determine loan eligibility focuses on a variety of factors including but not limited to FICO scores. In January 2011, Peerform raised $1.3 million during an angel funding round. In April 2014, Peerform raised $1.1 million in a seed funding round led by Corporest Development, a European investment firm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The House Crowd</span>

The House Crowd was a UK peer to peer lending and crowdfunding platform that allowed people to invest in bridging loans and property development loans from £1,000. In 2018, the business achieved authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority and launched their Innovative Finance ISA. As of January 2019, The House Crowd had funded 368 properties, raised over £93 million and paid investors returns in excess of £38 million. The House Crowd was placed into administration on 24 February 2021.

Lufax, full name Shanghai Lujiazui International Financial Asset Exchange Co., Ltd., is an online Internet finance marketplace headquartered in Lujiazui, Shanghai. Founded in 2011, it is an associate of China Ping An Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Folk2Folk</span>

FOLK2FOLK is a Marketplace lending platform (MPL) specializing in secured lending for business owners across the rural and regional parts of the UK. It matches businesses looking for capital with individual (retail) and institutional investors who receive a fixed interest rate from 7.5% p.a. secured against UK land or property. Investors receive the same interest rate that the Borrower pays, with FOLK2FOLK making its profit from an arrangement fee and annual renewal fee charged to Borrowers.

LendingRobot is an automated investment service for Peer-to-peer lending for retail investors. It is based in Seattle, Washington, and was the first SEC-registered Investment Advisor in the Peer to Peer Lending industry.

Groundfloor is an American real estate investing and lending marketplace. It was the first real estate crowdfunding company to achieve SEC qualification utilizing Regulation A+ since the regulation became operable through the JOBS Act.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Neuhaus, Carla (15 June 2014). "Woran Berliner Start-ups arbeiten". Tagesspiegel. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  2. ↑ Neuhaus, Carla (15 June 2014). "Woran Berliner Start-ups arbeiten". Tagesspiegel. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
  3. ↑ Hackmann, Felicitas (7 February 2014). "Zencap is the latest investor-investment matching platform — now with credit, not equity". Human Ipo. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
  4. ↑ "Rocket Internet's Credit Marketplace Zencap Will Help SMEs Ditch Bank Loans". Human Ipo. 31 March 2014. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  5. ↑ "Zencap crea una "nueva alternativa" de financiación para las pymes andaluzas" . Retrieved 2015-01-12.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. ↑ "Geld leihen von Privatpersonen: 5 Millionen Euro erfolgreich finanziert". Zencap. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  7. ↑ "Funding Circle is entering Europe". Business Insider UK. 20 October 2015.
  8. ↑ "Funding Circle übernimmt Zencap: Fintechs als Konkurrenz für Banken" (in German). Spiegel. 20 October 2015.
  9. 1 2 Drost, Frank Matthias (22 May 2014). "Jungunternehmer finanzieren den Mittelstand". Welt. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
  10. ↑ "Zencap Deutschland GMBH – Informationen, Zahlen, Fakten und Nachrichten".
  11. ↑ Räth, Georg (31 March 2014). "Das neue Rocket-Startup – Lendico für den Mittelstand". Gruenderszene. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  12. ↑ Hesse, Martin (31 March 2014). "David gegen Goliath". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
  13. ↑ Jarotschkin, Viktor (5 September 2014). "Innovative Mittelstandsfinanzierung mit Zencap". Fuer-gruender.de. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
  14. ↑ "Start-Up-Schmiede will den Mittelstand finanzieren". Handelsblatt. 30 March 2014. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  15. 1 2 Scuffham, Matt; Potter, Mark (20 October 2015). "Funding Circle expands into Europe through purchase of Zencap". Reuters. No. Financials. London. Thomson Reuters. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.