With the LendIt Europe taking place this week many companies have chosen to make some big announcements. Yesterday, we featured the news of Funding Circle acquiring Zencap and today, we wanted to feature another big announcement, this one from German p2p lender auxmoney. Auxmoney has received a €150 million commitment from Aegon, a Dutch insurance company, to invest on the auxmoney platform. This investment is the largest ever on a consumer loan market in the Eurozone.
I had the chance to speak to Raffael Johnen, Co-founder and CEO to learn more about the deal. Although the investment on the platform itself is significant, Aegon went further with their commitment and have also invested equity with auxmoney. Raffael also spoke to the fact that although they are taking on this capital, it has no effect on their commitment to retail investors. From the start, being a true peer to peer lender has been in their DNA and this doesn’t change things for the retail investor. Raffael said that the outcome of this deal benefits both the borrowers and investors. It will help them become a more mature platform with a diverse set of capital.
As you would expect from an insurance company, Aegon did a rigorous due diligence process on the deal. Aegon started with a test phase of capital deployment before making the full commitment. Raffael stated:
Aegon, as an insurance company, places the highest standards in terms of credit performance and security of auxmoney. Every single one of our private investors benefits from these highest quality standards.
A public announcement of an investment from an insurance company is something that we haven’t yet seen yet in the industry, but perhaps this is a sign of things to come. With this large investment, auxmoney is a company to keep an eye on in Germany.
