About

Team size: 32
Major law firms used: Ashurst, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Simmons & Simmons, Womble Bond Dickinson

Peer-to-peer lender Funding Circle capitalised on its status as one of the most high-profile fintech businesses in the UK with a September 2018 initial public offering, which valued the company at £1.5bn.

Global general counsel Lucy Vernall was heavily involved with the IPO, calling on Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer as external adviser. Says Trainline GC Neil Murrin: ‘Lucy was the lead on the IPO. Where I really admire people is when I see them adding value above the GC role, such as other commercial activities or exceptional projects.’

Funding Circle was founded in 2010 and has expanded into the US, Germany and the Netherlands. Its financial matchmaking service has seen nearly 80,000 investors lend more than £4.2bn to businesses, earning £230m in interest. Vernall was the company’s first UK lawyer in 2014, but the legal and compliance team has since grown to 32 people. The team is split across the four countries it operates in, although most are in the UK, with Vernall aligning her team closely to the managing directors in each of those.

Most of the work is done in-house apart from areas where the team has no internal expertise or on matters that require a second opinion, such as a regulatory issue. The IPO is obviously Funding Circle’s headline transaction of recent years, but other highlight projects have including receiving full authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority in 2017, as well as the company’s listing of an SME Income Fund on the London Stock Exchange.

One of Vernall’s main challenges has been in applying a body of law to Funding Circle’s relatively new business model. How they are applied, however, is aided by the company being a founding member of the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association.

‘We’re trying to make sure the business is ready – there are many challenges for a fast-growing business that is very open and transparent when it comes to compliance – and making sure we can retain the culture while having the right controls in place,’ Vernall comments. ‘When things are going well in legal and compliance, nobody notices.’