Funding Circle reached a major milestone in the first quarter of this year, with thousands of investors lending £53 million to small businesses across the country.

The exponential growth has led to independent estimations that Funding Circle could account for between 10%-20% of the small business lending market in the next decade.

Introducers continue to remain instrumental in the leading peer-to-peer lender’s growth, and to cope with ongoing demand, Funding Circle has recently expanded the business development team by 50%.

James Gibbs, who joins from Wellesley is a specialist in property, particularly development finance having worked in the industry for over 12 years. Jeremy Crinall, an asset finance specialist with seven years experience, joins from Econocom, and Sandeep Parekh joins us from BNY Mellon after five years.

Laura McMullen, Funding Circle’s business development director, said: “We continue to see considerable interest from the intermediary market across all of our products. We’re very excited to have three new members of the team, particularly following the recent extension into loans for small businesses who develop or invest in property.

“As we continue to smash lending milestones, and peer-to-peer lending moves fully into the mainstream, we are ensuring we keep up both with the demand from our introducers by expanding the team.”