Dublin’s Pulse College’s peer lender campaign seeks €60k

A history of creative endeavour at Dublin’s Pulse College is to be continued as it launches the country’s largest ever peer-to-peer loan campaign.

The creative media institute which houses the famous Windmill Lane Studios — home to U2, the Rolling Stones, and Van Morrison at different periods of its history — is looking for €60,000 to expand its business.

The loan campaign launched yesterday is being hosted on the country’s largest peer-to-peer lending platform Linked Finance.

“Today marks a significant milestone for Linked Finance as it is the biggest ever peer-to-peer loan Ireland has seen,” said Linked Finance founder Peter O’Mahony. “The perception of peer-to-peer has evolved rapidly in the past year and it is now a mainstream alternative to banks for large loan requirements in the SME market.

“We are absolutely delighted to facilitate loans for Irish businesses and to announce our biggest loan to date with Pulse College.”

Mr O’Mahony said bank lending cannot match its peer-to-peer equivalent in terms of the length of time it takes for a loan to be approved and money reaches the business.

As well as bridging that gap, Linked Finance has the added benefit of creating a community of active investors, he added.

Pulse College — which trains graduates across a range of audio, music, film, and animation courses — intends using the funds to invest in cutting-edge film and gaming equipment.

Companies that are a minimum of two years old can access loan funding of between €5,000 and €100,000 through Linked Finance’s 8,000 lenders.

In turn, the lenders can request and earn significant returns on their investment and engage with the business they invest in, as both customers and backers.

Of the successful companies to access funding via Linked Finance to date are Cork-based Curious Wines which landed a €30,000 investment and Leo Burdock’s — the legendary Dublin fish and chip shop — which held the previous record loan amount of €50,000.

Having launched last March, the lending platform had accommodated €5m in loans by November and is now nearing the €7.5m mark.

Pulse College director Tony Perrey said: “We are delighted to have Linked Finance as our partners as we invest in the technology to train the creative digital professionals of the future.”