The Anonymous Widower

A Clever Funding Route From Huddersfield University

Huddersfield University has teamed up with peer-to-peer lender; Funding Circle to create an interesting route to finance and develop small businesses.  It is described in this article. These paragraphs sum up the essence of the scheme.

Known as the Business Lending Partnership, Funding Circle’s recently-announced scheme alongside the University of Huddersfield has set a precedent for commercial and alternative lenders to start providing capital for non-traditional institutions. 

Using Funding Circle, the university will lend an initial tranche of £100,000 to small businesses across the UK. The initiative seeks to support SME pioneers of the present and future, with all interest earned by the university’s investments to be put towards student scholarships for the University’s ‘Enterprise Development’ degree. Over the next five years, it is expected that more than 200 students from socially deprived backgrounds will gain access to the course. 

Both Funding Circle and the university will also develop a series of seminars and internship opportunities with borrowers to ensure that the upcoming generation of business leaders can gain hands-on experience with flourishing British businesses as part of their degrees.

Obviously, not all partnerships will use the same model, but Huddersfield University and Funding Circle have used a clever model that can be cloned and/or adapted for other partnerships.

It will be interesting to see the nature of partnerships that develop in the next few years.

March 4, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Business, Finance, News | Funding Circle, Huddersfield, Research, University