UK’s Funding Circle, an online marketplace lender, raises $100 million
UK’s Funding Circle, an online marketplace lender, raises $100 million.
UK’s Funding Circle, an online marketplace lender, raises $100 million By Anna Irrera NEW YORK (Reuters) – Funding Circle, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace used by small- and medium-sized companies, has raised $100 million (81.98 million pounds) in an investment round led by venture capital firm Accel.
Funding Circle, a London-based website founded in 2010 with a presence in the United States and several European countries, is one of Europe’s largest and most valuable fin-tech startups.
The company raised $150 million from investors in April 2015, in a round valuing it at more than $1 billion.
Valuation for the latest investment was not disclosed.
The investment is the largest venture capital funding round in a UK-based fintech startup since the country voted to leave the European Union in June, according to data provider CB Insights.
The referendum’s outcome has raised concerns about its impact on Britain’s fintech sector.
Tandem Bank in December raised the second largest investment for a UK fintech company since the Brexit vote in a $43.3 million corporate minority round.
U.S. marketplace lenders had already been experiencing a softening of institutional investor demand for loans.
In April, it became the first marketplace lending platform in Europe to have its loans securitised.
4 Online Marketing Trends With Big Potential to Drive Sales
4 Online Marketing Trends With Big Potential to Drive Sales.
Online marketing constantly evolves, providing you with new ways to attract your target audience and convert them into sales and revenue.
Micro-influencers Influencer marketing can deliver the highest return when stacked up against other forms of online marketing, which is why I founded a second agency that focuses solely on influencer marketing.
In the end, you will experience much better results.
Live video Some early adapters dabbled with live video streaming last year, but this is the year it’s going to become part of everyone’s online marketing strategy.
Platforms like Facebook Live and Instagram Live Video allow you to reach your customer base in a way that’s very personal and raw.
Start testing now before your competition masters live video — don’t get left in the dark.
Paid social media The organic reach brands experienced in the early days of Facebook and Instagram is long gone, and this should be no surprise.
Social networks are businesses — they exist to make money — piles of it.
It can take time to master Facebook ads — and there is no better education than jumping in and learning through hands-on experience.
Malaysian Restaurant Chain PappaRich Mulls Singapore IPO
Malaysian Restaurant Chain PappaRich Mulls Singapore IPO.
PappaRich Malaysia Sdn., a food chain selling local cuisine from nasi lemak to curry laksa noodles, is considering a Singapore initial public offering to fund expansion, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The company, which opened its first restaurant in Malaysia in 2006, is targeting to achieve a valuation of at least S$200 million ($140 million) in the share sale, according to the people.
It aims to conduct the offering as soon as this year, one of the people said.
More than 1 million customers dine at PappaRich monthly, the website shows.
It also has a presence in Australia, China, Singapore and Brunei.
in gaining a listing to boost visibility and bankroll growth.
A representative for PappaRich, which is based near Kuala Lumpur, said a listing has always been a consideration as the company considers fundraising options to support its expansion plans.
PappaRich “would certainly” expect to have a valuation in excess of S$200 million upon listing, based on comparable businesses, he said.
Shares of Thai dessert chain After You Pcl, which raised $21 million in a Bangkok IPO last month, have surged 164 percent from their offer price.
Will Uber Be the Hottest IPO of 2017?
Get an Uber.
Get an Uber.
Uber.
This initiative could put the company in direct competition with Uber, as the lack of a driver could keep costs down in the long-term.
But Uber being Uber, the fleet of Volvos were on their way to Arizona within days.
Impressively, Otto engineers have worked at Tesla Motors (TSLA – Free Report) , Apple (AAPL – Free Report) , and Google, and with this knowledge and expertise, Uber is bound to be a top player in the self-driving car industry.
IPO Potential Despite these controversies, investors are eagerly awaiting an Uber IPO.
Just four companies filed public offerings that grossed over $1 billion.
Looking ahead, it’s difficult to pinpoint how busy the IPO market will be this year.
It’s IPO, then, could go either way, but let one number stay in your mind: $68 billion.
The Most Important Marketing Metric You’re Not Measuring
The Most Important Marketing Metric You’re Not Measuring.
We know that one group of people who make good customers for us are digital marketers searching the internet for things such as email marketing, social media marketing and marketing analytics.
Apply content-centric metrics to each topic bucket There are three key metrics that effective entrepreneurs, business owners and marketers measure to analyze performance, refine strategy and scale marketing-generated revenue.
Now you have your content topics, you need to apply each of these metrics to each of your content topics to see which performs best across each metric.
Visit volume per content topic The question you’re trying to answer here is: “What content topic generates the most visitors for my business?”
This is your visit volume for each topic bucket in question.
Lead-rate and volume per content topic Now that you know what content topics generate the most visitors, you want to work out how well each topic converts those visitors into leads.
Work out the total leads generated for each topic bucket, and divide that number by the total number of visits you received for the same pages and timeframe (e.g. six months).
Customer-rate and volume per content topic Now that you know what topics generate the most leads, you need to work out how well each of them convert into customers.
Once you’re regularly measuring the above content-centric metrics, and know what content topics work best for your business, you can begin to optimise these topics per channel.
Invitation Homes Makes Public Offering Plans Known
Invitation Homes Makes Public Offering Plans Known.
’s single-family rental platform Invitation Homes has announced its plans for an initial public offering, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and Forbes.
Invitation Homes could receive more than $5 billion from the IPO, according to Forbes.
Citing a filing by Invitation Homes, the Wall Street Journal reported that among other purposes, the proceeds from the IPO to repay Invitation Homes’ debts.
Noting that ongoing home price appreciation continues to put upward pressure on rents, Antoine Gara of Forbes wrote that “For Blackstone, the IPO will mark the beginning of an exit from one of the biggest bets in its history.” In July 2016, Blackstone first announced the intention to go public with Invitation Homes at some point in the first half of 2017 in order to capitalize “on a rally in U.S. single-family rental landlords to list the biggest company in the industry.” In December 2016, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported that Blackstone had “filed confidentially for an initial public offering” with regard to Invitation Homes.
Blackstone created the Invitations Homes unit in 2012 in response to the housing crisis in order to capitalize on the growing demand for rental properties coming largely from people who lost homes to foreclosure in the crisis and were unable to obtain mortgage credit to buy another home.
Blackstone made the largest investment in buyers who attempted to institutionalize the single-family leasing business by buying distressed single-family homes at large discounts and offering them as rental properties to those displaced by foreclosure.
Invitation Homes currently oversees approximately 50,000 housing units, the largest pool of rental homes across 14 of the nation’s metropolitan markets.
Blackstone states on its website that the platform creates jobs and provides high quality, affordable housing for families nationwide.
Neither Blackstone nor Invitation Homes immediately responded to a request for comment on the IPO.
In Honor of His Farewell, 17 Inspiring Quotes From President Obama
In Honor of His Farewell, 17 Inspiring Quotes From President Obama.
He highlighted his accomplishments and recalled his groundbreaking 2008 presidential campaign.
Here are some of Obama’s most inspiring quotes from his eight years in office.
Not in my ability to bring about change — but in yours.” On being an entrepreneur “Entrepreneurship means ownership and self-determination, as opposed to simply being dependent on somebody else for your livelihood and your future.
On change “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.
On taking control of the future “We did not come to fear the future, we came to shape it.”
On persistence “The future rewards those who press on.
I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself.
Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.”
And we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it’s easy, but when it is hard.”
Without Management Standards Your Company Doesn’t Know What It’s Doing
Without Management Standards Your Company Doesn’t Know What It’s Doing.
When it comes to improving the effectiveness of an organization’s managers, many companies struggle to distinguish the good, the bad and the ugly.
The difficulty of assessing manager competence is universal.
The problem with employee surveys.
Bad management, big price tag.
With no clear benchmark for what constitutes good management, an organization leaves itself vulnerable to bad managers rising in the ranks.
To raise the standard, set the standard.
One simple, powerful way to immediately elevate the quality and consistency of management performance throughout your organization is to create a set of management standards — a concrete set of expectations to which every manager is held accountable.
For example, committing time to weekly 1:1 meetings, providing consistent and focused feedback, asking for regular feedback from direct reports, and scheduling weekly team meetings are all behaviors that speak to a whether a manager is dedicating time to their team on a regular basis.
Similarly, when gauging manager preparedness for new hires, behaviors include creating a schedule for a new hire’s first week on the job, determining and assigning onboarding training, introducing a new hire to relevant stakeholders and employees at the company, and providing role clarity with a roadmap of short and longer term goals.
Why Small Businesses Should Consider Bitcoin
Why Small Businesses Should Consider Bitcoin.
And, is it time your small business accepted it, too?
What is bitcoin?
However, you’ll often have the option to pay an extremely small transaction fee, which can speed up your processing.
No wait Maybe those fees aren’t bothering you, but waiting around for your money to arrive in your bank account does.
Because there’s no centralized institution that checks every bitcoin transaction — its underlying technology, blockchain, does it for you — there’s no need to wait nearly as long to receive your payment.
You can look at bitcoin as an investment: By accepting bitcoins, then waiting to cash them in, you’re taking a chance on their value increasing.
Although bitcoin has become increasingly more stable over time, even recently beating out gold, it’s still fundamentally a currency that isn’t overseen by a single financial institution.
With a decentralized, volatile, purely digital currency, it can be difficult to plan financial statements, figure out taxes and determine your prices.
How can you make projections that account for large fluctuations or changing government regulations?
Will Facebook Marketplace Be the Next Ecommerce Heavyweight?
Will Facebook Marketplace Be the Next Ecommerce Heavyweight?.
but as the option goes deeper into its 40s in 2017, the slightest hint of an unfamiliar hue turns the dye a completely different color.
That country’s emergence in the ecommerce marketplace has it set to overtake the United States in less than two decades, with “digital” sales expected to reach $63.7 billion by 2020.
It’s a relatively new feature on the Facebook app, working somewhat similarly to Craigslist with one exception — you can actually see who is selling the product.
If you’re an ecommerce startup, consider creating a Shopify store and hosting your products on your Facebook page.
Using a platform such as Shopify allows you to sell products not only on your site, but on other channels, such as Facebook fan pages.
Some 28 percent of consumers abandon their shopping carts when charged an unexpected shipping rate.
Because shipping hard goods can be expensive, you’ll often need to bake shipping into the cost, or change what you charge for shipping.
Otherwise, look at using a fulfillment company to handle shipping.
As your business grows, you need to learn that no one can do it all.
4 Dumb SEO Tactics That Will Get Your Site Penalized
Is your SEO provider about to get you penalized?
If any of these are happening, there is a good chance you are on your way to a Google penalty.
Linking to your homepage First, there is nothing wrong with including homepage links into your backlink strategy.
Some people still believe that acquiring more links to the homepage of your website will help that website rank higher.
Google doesn’t rank websites.
A link wheel is when a marketer links to a money article (your website) from others.
When an SEO provider is able to acquire a backlink for you, ask if they own the property where the link originates.
Linking from penalized websites You never want to be linked from a website that is sandboxed by Google.
Ask your SEO provider how it determines which sites to acquire links from.
Many SEO providers still use these methods.
Precursor Ventures is a classic seed-stage fund with a refreshing new twist
Charles Hudson has lived in the Bay Area for the last 20 years, working as product manager, as an entrepreneur, and an investor.
The goal for Precursor is to write checks in the range of $150,000 to $250,000 to teams that have maybe two founders and a prototype and probably not much in the way of a launched product or traction, with about 20 percent of the capital set aside to participate in [slightly more mature] companies that are maybe raising $2 million on a $6 million or $8 million pre-money valuation.
TC: How many companies is that then that you think you can support with this new fund?
TC: Are you leading most of these rounds?
I’ve syndicated six follow-on rounds already for companies that had raised a preseed round of $1 million but went on to raised an institutional round of $2.5 million to $4 million.
CH: So a couple of companies that were raising follow-on funding allocated me, say, $225,000 of the round.
TC: Why would investors push back on this?
Then about 30 percent of the founders we’ve backed are female.
If I were at 23 percent, I wouldn’t force a fit, but I’d wonder what we should be doing to make it known that we’re approachable.
I think everything in venture is hard unless you make it priority.
Next government must ensure congenial environment for startups: Entrepreneurs
Next government must ensure congenial environment for startups: Entrepreneurs.
Several entrepreneurs are of the view that other state governments were providing startups with better facilities.
“Others states, including Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, are doing a lot for the development of the startup environment, but no such thing is happening in Punjab,” says Bunny Chum from a startup regarding QR codes.
So they are forced to move out of Punjab to set up offices, which in turn helps other states instead of Punjab,” he said.
Even though the founder of Ola Cab hailed from the city, but he had to set up operations in Gurgaon because a conducive environment was missing the state, he said.
There are government schemes, but youths are not aware about them.
The government can set up or support private incubators for giving a push to startups,” he says.
Nitin Jain, another entrepreneur, said, “Ludhiana is known for its entrepreneurial zeal.
All youths need is the direction and support in the beginning.
The government can play a vital role in the direction.” “The state possesses a lot of talent which needs to be nurtured, guided and mentored.
How Thinking Like an Introvert Can Help You Get Ahead in Business
How Thinking Like an Introvert Can Help You Get Ahead in Business.
Here’s how thinking like an introvert can help you get ahead in business.
In actuality, research has found that introverts perform better in team environments because they tend to be more collaborative than their extroverted peers.
(Bill Gates credits many of his own ideas to his introversion and his subsequent propensity to spend a lot of time thinking deeply on his own.)
Introverts tend to be better listeners and observers than extroverts.
To cultivate these same skills, work on improving your listening and observational habits.
And introverts tend to possess this quality in spades.
The various traits outlined above — from observing closely to thinking deeply — all facilitate creative thought.
This helps explain why introverts may be the members of a team most likely to come up with innovative ideas or solutions to various problems.
Want to stand out in the workplace, develop meaningful career connections and cultivate innovative ideas that get you noticed at work, or spark the idea for a new business?
How to Set Up ‘Google My Business’ for Your Small Business
To begin our journey of getting found, we are going to start with the most basic SEO strategy available by the universe’s biggest search provider, Google.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business features a built in profile that appears to the right of a user’s search results and shows the following information: Business name Business address Business telephone number Business logo Photographs of your business One-click direction, call and website buttons Popular times Hours of operation Reviews All of the above information is tracked by Google using their mighty analytics and gives the business an accurate pulse on how often customers are looking for them.
Google does not approve businesses for Google My Business profiles that use a P.O.
Let’s look at the steps it takes to get your Google My Business account set up!
Google will then create your Google My Business profile and account.
After you verify your business address for the postcard, you can now access your Google My Business dashboard.
Under the “Photos” section of your dashboard you can manage the photos in your business profile.
Begin asking for reviews from your clients.
Believe it or not, Google has an app that allows you to change your business information, review analytics and proactively engage reviewers.
This Injured Veteran Regained His Passion Building an Electric Bike Business
Are entrepreneurs in the UAE more risk-averse than investors?
Are entrepreneurs in the UAE more risk-averse than investors?.
“A good example is Careem versus PropertyFinder, which are two of our portfolio companies,” advised Farha.
“We also have examples, such as PropertyFinder who acqua-hired an entrepreneur who was trying to build up the same business that they were doing in Dubai.
The dance for us in this part of the world is more about getting people to realise that they need smart money.
Gulati concluded the discussion by confirming that the country’s start-up ecosystem had also matured from entrepreneurs focusing on business models proven in other markets to them becoming more adventurous and ‘trying to win this technology battle.’ “The trend that I see is people shifting more from B2C to B2B, and WrappUp [a meeting productivity app developed in Dubai in 2015] is a good example of a successful B2B model,” he said.
“People always say that investors are risk-averse, but I think that entrepreneurs are risk-averse.
The consumer business is built on a freemium model, and most people have realised that that model does not work in this part of the world unless it is very well funded.
“The second trend that I see is that we will see more people accepting that they do not have to build a $1bn start-up.
Prashant K. (PK) Gulati: “The most valuable investor for me is a person who invests his/her time.
“We invest a lot of time, and the only challenge that we have as investors is that time does not scale.
10 Founders Share What Their Worst Boss Taught Them
10 Founders Share What Their Worst Boss Taught Them.
We’ve all had bosses that make us crazy — whether it was a supervisor with a big temper, one that watched your every move or the one that never knew what he wanted.
But even if at the time it was frustrating or demoralizing, there is an upside: You’ll never catch yourself being that kind of manager.
We caught up with 10 successful entrepreneurs who shared with us the lessons they learned from the worst bosses they’ve ever had.