Online auction company Trade Me has paid $7.7m for a 15% stake in New Zealand-based peer-to-peer lending platform developer Harmoney as part of a $10m series A round that was confirmed on Monday.
Launched in September 2014, Harmoney operates a platform enabling users to lend to each other, and gets its money through charging small fees. It has so far facilitated more than $20m in syndicated personal loans.
Jon Macdonald, Trade Me’s CEO, said: “It is early days but we think there’s a lot of potential for P2P lending to work well in New Zealand, and of course consumer finance is a large and well-established industry here.
“To us it looks like an area of the market that will undergo a long-term structural shift online – and we believe Harmoney is well-placed to take advantage of this.”
Harmoney CEO Neil Roberts told New Zealand finance website Stuff the companies had been in touch since April, stating: “We could easily have raised $30m so it is a great place for a young company to be.
“The investment is a great endorsement for Harmoney but more importantly we gain a strategic partner and distribution channel with deep knowledge of building and running an online marketplace.”