Oxford trio in line for £70m as they float £2bn lender

Technology tycoons plot £1.5billion London float

THREE Oxfordeducated entrepreneurs in their 30s could make almost £70m between them when their online lending business floats in a deal expected to value it at around £2bn.

Funding Circle is hoping to raise £ 300m in the share listing, which it plans to use to help boost its advertising.

The firm is among a growing band of webbased ‘peertopeer’ lenders, bringing together small and medium companies which need finance with savers who can earn returns of 4.6pc7.6pc.

Funding Circle has lent more than £5bn to 50,000 small businesses and employs around 1,000 staff, who own 10pc of the business. The rest is held by venture capital firms.

Chief executive Samir Desai – who founded the business with James Meekings and Andrew by Lucy White Mullinger in 2010 – owns around 7pc. Meekings, the UK managing director, holds 5pc and Mullinger, who stepped back from his daytoday responsibilities at the company in 2016, owns around 4.5pc. The three 35yearolds will each have the opportunity to sell a quarter of their stakes, which means they could cash in up to £ 67.9m between them. Danish entrepreneur Anders Povlsen, the largest shareholder in online fashion giant Asos, will take 10pc of the shares in the float, acting as its ‘cornerstone’ investor – one who acts as an anchor by taking a large stake.

Desai said there had been substantial interest and several others had offered to act as cornerstone investors.

‘We really liked that Anders is an entrepreneur,’ he said.