LendInvest results

As a quick follow on to my recent post, When is a loss a good loss?, LendInvest bucked the trend somewhat this week by announcing profits for the 12m to March 16 of £3.4m.

Headline numbers are:

• 133% increase in gross revenues to £32 million (vs £14 million, FY 2015)
• £3.4 million profits (vs £3.3 million profits, FY 2015)
• 84% increase in total annual lending to £320 million (vs £174 million, FY 2015)
• 165% increase in employee headcount to 90 full time staff (from 34, FY 2015)

While others at industry conference, LendIt, where explaining their rationale for keeping overheads ahead of revenue - MarketInvoice, which was once in profit, is now investing in R&D to target the mainstream; Funding Circle is taking its European expansion slowly to gather the data so that controlled scaling can happen - Christian Faes was rather more pragmatic when he said LendInvest is focusing on profits because "VC money has largely left the party".

Interesting if true.