UK based Nesta has publised a report on the “Rise of Future Finance” and covers alternative finance, including P2B UK crowdlending and equity crowdfunding platforms. It is estimated that in 2013 over 647,000 projects were fully funded via alternative finance intermediaries and the report recognizes the disruptive nature of crowdfunding and the growing disintermediation of traditional sources of capital formation.

Nesta infographic UK Alternative Finance Market

Key findings from the report include:

• The UK alternative finance market grew by 91% from £492m in 2012 to £939m in 2013
• The UK P2B debtlending market grew with more than 200% to £193 millon
• They predict that the UK alternative finance market will grow to £1.6 billion in 2014 and provide £840m worth of business finance for start-ups and SMEs in 2014

The 91% growth stated above is an attempt to include all the diverse variants of crowdfunding.

The breakdown of the various crowdfunding categories and amounts raised for 2013 are below;

• Donations based crowdfunding £310 Million
• Peer-to-Peer Lending (P2P)  £287 Million
• Peer-to-Peer Business Lending (P2B)  £193 Million
• Invoice Trading (Receivables Financing)  £97 Million
• Equity Based Crowdfunding £28 Million
• Rewards Based Crowdfunding £20.5 Million
• Debt Based Crowdfunding £2.7 Million
• Profit Sharing / Revenue Crowdfunding  £1.5 Million
• Microfinance / Community Shares  £0.8 Million

The ECrowd! team