In 2008, as global financial markets crashed, co-founders Christian Faes and Ian Thomas saw an opportunity to fill a gap in short-term property finance, and so mortgage lending business Montello Bridging Finance was born.

Five years on, following the evolution of digital, they brought the investment experience online with the launch of LendInvest. The investment platform is designed to empower investors to build their own tailored portfolios of investments in short-term property finance. The business has lent more than £900m to hundreds of borrowers to finance more than 3,000 properties, the total value of which exceeds £1.7bn.

Since 2015, the company has raised almost $50m (£39m) in funding and is backed by Atomico, the European VC firm led by the founder of Skype, Niklas Zennström.