debt Artesano


Knitting wool wholesaler Artesano raised £65,000 on Funding Circle. SmallBusiness talks to managing director Tom Coomber.


What’s your company’s funding history? We’re with a high street bank and we do have a loan and overdraft in place with them. When they took us on they told us that we’re a good business to be lending to, but every year our business is growing and we need more cash for stock. We were in a position where our company directors had securities on the loans in the form of property and there was nowhere else to go in terms of security, so we had to look elsewhere.


How did you find Funding Circle? It was one of those things that seemed too good to be true in terms of the method and ease of borrowing. But I bit the bullet, went online, looked through the small print and it seemed pretty feasible so we slowly put the deal together and it did turn out to be straightforward.


What were the terms of the loan? It’s a three-year repayment plan and the interest rate is bid for by their lenders. Let’s just say the interest rate turned out to be around 2 per cent better than what my bank


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was offering. They ask you to fill in a profile and you put your details into the website; it’s really a platform to sell our business to lenders and demonstrate why we’re a safe bet. The process is simple and the underwriting procedure painless.


What’s the loan secured against, if anything? It’s not secured, it’s under director’s guarantee which is a liability for us but we have faith that we would be able to sell our stock and support the repayment of any loan if we had to close the business, whereas a bank would want security on a property. n


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