London: The British p2p lending marketplace Funding Circle has raised $16 million in series B round of funding from Index Venture and Union Square Ventures. The fund will be used to build its business of enabling non-bank lending to small enterprises. The company has earlier raised $1.1 million in Angel funding and $4.14 million in series A round of funding led by Index Venture, bringing the total fund raised to around $21.2 million.

Founded in 2009 by Samir Desai, James Meekings and Andrew Mullinger, Funding Circle is an online marketplace for the provision of loans to small businesses in the U.K. The company is backed by leading venture capital firms and a group of private investors, including current and former heads of private equity firms, insurers, banks, IT companies and leading professional services providers. The company’s market place connects thousands of businesses directly to thousands of lenders, thereby cutting out traditional banks and the high costs and long processing times associated with them.

Samir Desai is the CEO and Co-Founder of Funding Circle and is responsible for driving the company strategy, overseeing the company’s finances and managing the day to day operations. He has worked extensively in the financial services sector. Prior to this, he was an executive at Olivant, a private equity investor in financial services businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Before this, Desai was a management consultant at BCG advising a number of major U.K. and global banks and insurers on strategy, new product initiatives and operational efficiency. He has studied Economics and Management from University of Oxford.

According to Union Square Venture website, in the past 18 months, the market place has enabled over $45,000,000 of loans to almost 700 small business borrowers, with average yields for investors. Union Square Venture believes that this approach of financing businesses is a powerful and more beneficial to all participants.