'Superwoman' Nicola Horlick to launch peer-to-peer finance firm

'City superwoman' Nicola Horlick (Getty Images)

Former City ‘Superwoman’ Nicola Horlick will become the latest to jump on the crowdfunding bandwagon when she launches her own peer-to-peer finance firm next year.

The news that the former Morgan Grenfell fund manager is to launch Money&Co in the first few months of next year, comes just days after the City Watchdog announced a crackdown on the booming crowdfunding sector.

The Financial Conduct Authority is worried that the crowdfunding industry - which is expected to top £1bn by 2016 – is attracting people who don’t understand the risks, chiefly that they could lose all their money.

The regulator is concerned by the number of new firms that fail, such ethical soap maker Bubble & Balm, which raised £75,000 through crowdfunding but then collapsed, losing investors all their cash.

It plans to force crowdfunding firms to advertise responsibly and only promote offers to sophisticated investors.

Ms Horlick has already dipped her toe in the world of crowdfunding, raising £150,000 as seed corn capital to launch $100m film financing fund Glentham Capital based in Guernsey.

“We went to the expert Seedrs run by a brilliant Oxford-educated American lawyer,” she said.

She was able to raise the money in just 22 hours, with 136 investors backing the business with from as little as £10 each.

Ms Horlick hopes her new platform can rival the established Seedrs. “Crowdfunding is growing very quickly and this provides a great opportunity. Our platform will let people lend to businesses at a rate agreed by both parties. It is a smarter way for businesses to get the capital they need and for people to get a better return on their cash.”

Recent crowdfunding successes include Scottish pub company BrewDog which raised more than £1m from investor fans of its Punk IPA beer in just 24 hours.

PA