Funding Circle’s new funding round will value the London FinTech startup at $1bn
Funding Circle is on the verge of closing a new round of funding which would value the London FinTech startup at more than $1bn (£674m) and see it join just a handful of UK tech companies with billion-dollar valuations.
The peer-to-peer lender could close funding of more than £50m within weeks, including backing from Blackrock and the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek, Sky News reports.
The five-year-old company has already raised more than $120m in five rounds of funding from Index Ventures, Accel Partners, Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital.
The latest round comes as it was revealed the London tech sector attracted a record amount of venture capital investment in 2015. Fellow FinTech companies WorldRemit and Transferwise have broken through the magical $1bn mark, often called a unicorn valuation due to its rarity, this year.
An increasing number of VC firms are setting up shop in London, including the investment arm of the Singapore government's tech development authority Infocomm, as the capital builds its reputation as a global center for tech behind Silicon Valley.