Today was a monumental day at OurCrowd, as we announced the closing of the largest equity crowd funding round in history. OurCrowd led a $19.5M Series E funding round for Borro, the UK-NY based, asset-backed online lender. Other investors included Rocket Internet AG (RKET), Canaan Partners and Augmentum Capital. OurCrowd alone raised $6M of the capital invested, making this the single largest equity crowdfunding round ever completed and demonstrates how equity crowdfunding can complement and even lead traditional funding sources, like venture capital.
“In under two years, OurCrowd went from participating in early seed rounds to now successfully leading a $19.5M dollar major funding round together with Tier 1 VCs such as Canaan and the renowned internet company, Rocket,” said OurCrowd Founder and CEO, Jon Medved. We are delighted to be investing in quality companies like Borro, which is redefining the Fintech industry.”
Launched in the UK in 2009 and in the US in 2012, Borro has defined a new category of online personal asset-based lending. Borro focuses on providing liquidity to individuals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who use luxury personal assets such as watches, jewelry, supercars, fine art, antiques and high-end handbags as collateral for short term loans.
Borro was recently ranked #8 right behind Lending Club (NYSE: LC) #6 and OnDeck #7 (NYSE: ONDK) in KPMG’s 50 Best Fintech Innovators Report. OurCrowd ranked #22 on the list. Borro is backed by a consortium of high caliber VC investors with significant expertise in online finance. Investing alongside OurCrowd is Rocket Internet AG, a German internet company based in Berlin that builds online startups and owns share of various internet companies including Foodpanda/Hellofood, Home24, Jabong, Jumia and Lamoda. Other Borro investors include Canaan Partners (investor in Lending Club) and Augmentum Capital (investor in the UK’s top lending marketplace, Zopa). Borro has recruited notable financial industry veterans to its board of directors who bring a significant amount of experience to the company, including Nigel Morris (co-founder Capital One) as Chairman and Paul Grattan (ex-CEO Egg, First Direct.)
Here are two recent news articles on the closed round in the Wall Street Journal and Tech Crunch.
For the full press release click here.
