The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2010
🌱
2010
Founded in London
Samir Desai and co-founders build a marketplace matching small businesses that need loans with investors willing to fund them.
Wikipedia
2015
🦄
2015
Joins the unicorn club
New funding values the peer-to-peer lender above $1B — one of the most hyped fintechs of the P2P boom.
TechCrunch
Sep 2018
📈
Sep 2018
The peak: a £1.5B London float$2B
Lists on the LSE, raising £300M — and the shares struggle almost from the first trade.
TechCrunch
Jul 2019
Jul 2019
Down 72% in under a year
Growth slows, losses mount, and enthusiasm for P2P lending evaporates.
Euromoney
2019
💔
2019
Slips out of the club
A year after the £1.5B float, the market cap sits below $1B — eventually falling under the total equity investors ever put in.
Yahoo Finance
2022–24
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–24
Glassdoor reviews from the leaner years described a business turning defensive: staff recounted the decision to sell the US arm — seen internally as the main growth engine — followed by redundancy rounds and cost-cutting, with talent leaving even as the company kept touting its culture.
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Funding Circle built a marketplace connecting small businesses seeking loans with investors willing to fund them, and was one of the most hyped fintechs of the peer-to-peer lending boom. It floated on the London Stock Exchange in September 2018 at a £1.5B valuation, but the shares slid more than 70% within a year as growth slowed, losses mounted and enthusiasm for P2P lending evaporated.
Source: TechCrunch / Euromoney / Yahoo Finance (£1.5B IPO Sept 2018, raised £300M; shares -72% by July 2019; market cap fell below total equity invested)
Founders
Samir Desai
Co-founder & CEO who led the 2018 IPO (peak); stepped down as CEO 2021, remains a director
Now Founder and CEO at Super Payments · LinkedIn ↗
James Meekings
co-founder
Now Investor and Board Director at stocs · LinkedIn ↗
Andrew Mullinger
co-founder
Now Investor and Board Director at The Electric Car Scheme · LinkedIn ↗
Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.
