Mortgage robo-adviser MortgageGym has completed a funding round of £3.8m from investors, including LSL Property Services plc (LSL).
GoCompare Group plc has also increased its shareholding as part of this investment round. Following the LSL investment MortgageGym is valued at £12m despite only having fully launched its proposition earlier this year and the funding will enable ongoing investment in the company’s development of mortgage robo-advice and artificial intelligence services.
The investment round included the obtaining of FCA approval.
The funding round follows a seed funding round of £2.5m, which was completed in 2017, and almost a year of integration with GoCompare’s services.
In addition, MortgageGym has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with LSL mortgage broker networks – which, at the end of 2017, had some 2,298 mortgage advisers and arranged £21bn in lending in 2017.
The investment sees the promotion of Jeremy Moll from chief commercial officer to become the company’s managing director. He has over 28 years of experience in the UK mortgage and insurance industries. He was part of the senior team that created CompareTheMarket.com and latterly BeagleStreet.com.
John Ingram, co-founder of MortgageGym, said: “Our funding round, strategic partnerships and continuing unique proposition put us in a strong position to truly revolutionise the UK mortgage market. Other digital mortgage platforms are constrained by their aim to organically grow their customer-base and build broker support at the same time, while our compelling fusion of ‘bricks and clicks’ will allow us to rapidly alleviate homebuyers of the uncertainty and stress of mortgage applications on a national scale.
“We have carefully chosen investors that not only bring funds, but invaluable, symbiotic business models and expertise. As a result, we do not need to invest in costly customer acquisition or building a broker-base. This places us in a much stronger position than our peers as it allows us to invest the new capital in improving our technology – thereby improving customers’ choices.
“We are thrilled that the business will benefit from the new investment and we are delighted that Jeremy has been promoted to the company’s managing director during this exciting time. The UK mortgage market is poised for digital revolution, and we are here to drive it.”
