By Business & Finance 
Peter O’Mahony, CEO, Linked Finance
Peer-to-peer lending company Linked Finance has launched a revamped crowdfunded online lending platform as part of €2.5m investment.
Linked Finance opted to crowdsource the design elements of its website, commissioning an international competition to tap into the very best design talent available globally.
Launched in March 2013, Linked Finance has a lender base of over 11,000 people, bringing together Irish SMEs and members of the public who are looking to lend to businesses at competitive interest rates.
The company has facilitated loans for over 350 Irish businesses and recently reached a milestone with over €10m in new funds now available for loans through its online platform.
The online competition attracted 50 design submissions, providing the company with a wide range of solutions and design ideas to choose from.
The crowdsourced component of the website redesign took two weeks from tender to selection.
The redesign formed part of a larger 10-month project involving a complete rebranding and technical redevelopment of company’s online lending platform following a €2.5m investment secured last year for the expansion of its IT platform.
Peter O’Mahony, CEO of Linked Finance, said: “We’re delighted with the results of the competition and the new design of our website. The approach used is very much in line with Linked Finance’s own peer-to-peer model and has proved a very efficient and highly cost-effective way to tap into an enormous pool of design talent.”
He continued: “It’s also allowed us to avoid some of the constraints of traditional design routes, which can be time consuming. It’s very much an approach we’d recommend to any company looking to revamp their online presence.”
