Blend secures £50m-plus bridging funding line

The lender says that the bridging funding line would allow it to bring out new bridging products and showed the firm’s “rapid and consistent development” since it was founded in 2018, as well as its “strong track record”.

Blend said that the funding is added to its existing family office-backed and institutional funding. The company had previously secured £120m in committed capital from six large family offices to boost lending for small-to-mid-sized developers.

The company added that it had had a record quarter of lending in Q4 2023, which included funding a variety of property development schemes. This covers high-end and affordable schemes across the country.

Yann Murciano, CEO at Blend, said: “At Blend, we have the appetite to support quality developers in all market conditions. We appreciate many developers have faced a challenging market environment over the past 18 months.

“Consequently, sales have been slow and exits have taken longer than initially expected and planned. Many developers we speak to have had their development loan facilities expired and are under increased pressure from their lenders, who are experiencing lender fatigue.

“We are keen to support those developers by stepping in to help them carry their projects to a point where they can achieve their sales targets instead of having to sell at a discount or accept any offer just to exit.

“At Blend, we’ve built a reputation for being a through-the-cycle lender, a lender who understands the development process and the challenges that come with it. So, we’ve built a product that answers the needs of developers, and we are very excited about this new institutional funding line that’ll increase our dry power to continue supporting developers.”

Blend has been growing its team, appointing Claire McGirr as its head of portfolio management and Duncan Armstrong as its portfolio asset manager.