Latvian Peer-To-Peer Lending Marketplace Closes €2 Million Seed Round

More than 4500 investors from over 40 countries are currently using Mintos.

Peer-to-peer lending marketplace Mintos has closed a seed-funding round, attracting €2 million from Skillion Ventures, a Riga-based venture capital firm. The funds will be used for accelerating growth in Europe.

The platform launched in January 2015 brings together investors with non-bank lenders, giving opportunities to both private individuals and institutional investors to finance non-bank lender loans. Through the service, Mintos offers investors an asset class that previously was not generally available – the opportunity to finance loans originated by non-bank lenders.

“Traditionally, non-bank lenders have financed their loans from their balance sheets. Now, with the help of Mintos, non-bank lenders have the opportunity to use the peer-to-peer lending model to diversify methods of financing loans. For investors, Mintos provides the chance to gain access to loans that were previously accessible to a very limited number of investors, or practically inaccessible at all,” says the co-founder and CEO of Mintos, Martins Sulte.

At the moment, seven non-bank lenders from Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, and Lithuania have joined the platform, and more than 4500 investors from over 40 countries across the world are currently using Mintos. The most active investors come from the Baltics, Germany, and United Kingdom.

The diversity of the lenders enables that the investors may diversify their investment portfolio across different loan types, geographies, and loan originators, such as business loans, car loans, invoices, mortgage loans, and personal loans.

The total loan origination volume of non-bank lenders stands at more than €150 million run rate a year, the company estimates.