Crowd funding coming to Mullingar

A new Irish online crowd funding initiative is looking to help SMEs in the Mullingar area access finance.

Launched early last month, LinkedFinance facilitates person-to-person lending, also known as crowd funding, for Irish SMEs struggling to access finance from the traditional banking sector.

Businesses that have a minimum of two years’ good trading accounts and have been fully vetted as part of their registration process with LinkedFinance, can raise between €5,000 and €50,000 from members of the public, including customers, employees and business associates, who are looking to invest their savings.

The loans are generally for 36 months and unlike in mainstream banking, firms that pay back their loan in full before the term ends are not penalised. Potential investors can choose what businesses they would like to invest in, how much they would like to invest and what level of return they want.

In a press release, LinkedFinance said that it hopes to “change the face of small face of small/medium sized business lending in Ireland and cut the banks out of the equation”. The firm has already received the support of number of high profile business figures including Bobby Kerr and Ferghal Quinn.

Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner, LinkedFinance’s Roberta Carroll, who comes from Mullingar, said that the firm had decided to target the town as she knows that there are a number of viable SMEs in area that could benefit from crowd funding.

“The interest we’ve got since we launched last month has been amazing,” said Ms Carroll. “People are really taking to it like a duck to water. It’s more of a co-operative bank, going back to the days when people chipped in to help each out other out.”

Ms Carroll noted that for borrowers it is a great way to generate further income as evidence has shown that investors are more likely to support the business that they have lent money to ensure that they get a return on their investment.