Cambridge Study: European Online Alternative Finance Markets Grow 144 Percent in 2014

As firms around the world continue to seek funding outside of traditional sources of capital, it has become increasingly difficult to track these emerging markets. That’s why in November the University of Cambridge and the professional services organization EY launched the European Alternative Finance Benchmarking Survey with the support of other major European industry associations, the largest study to-date on crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, and other forms of alternative finance in Europe. The study, which opened in late November 2014 and ran until early January 2015, ultimately received input from 255 crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending platforms across 28 European countries. Highlights from the first year of the research study include:

• The European alternative finance market was valued at €2.96B (3.3B USD) in 2014 compared to €1.21B (2.3B USD) in 2013, an increase of 144 percent;
• €201M (222M USD) in early stage, growth and working capital funding was provided to European startups and SMEs by alternative finance platforms in 2014;
• The United Kingdom, by far, has the highest proportion European’s alternative finance with €2.34B (2.6B USD) in 2014, followed by France (€154M, 170M USD), Germany (€140M, 154M USD), and Sweden (€107M, 118M USD);
• Projected total transaction volume in online alternative finance platforms in Europe is expected to continue to grow in 2015, with the UK market projected to reach €5.7B (6.3B USD) and the rest of the European market to reach €1.3 billion (1.4B USD) combined.

Moving Mainstream: The European Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report, written by authors at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, may be downloaded here.