Prominent financial technology startup Funding Circle Holdings Ltd. today filed for an initial public offering in its native U.K. with the goal of raising 300 million pounds, or $387.5 million.

The IPO could give Funding Circle a valuation as high as 1.65 billion pounds, the equivalent of $2.13 billion. The filing comes amid rapid growth in the volume of transactions processed by the startup’s business lending platform, which has issued billions of dollars’ worth of loans to small and midsized businesses since launch.

Funding Circle lends money under a peer-to-peer model. The startup cuts traditional banks out of the loop by enabling borrowers to apply for up to 500,000 pounds from a capital pool financed directly by institutional and individual investors.

Funding Circle Chief Executive Officer Samir Desai told Forbes that the startup is the biggest “non-balance-sheet lender to small businesses” in the U.S. He said its platform has provided about a billion dollars in loans to American businesses since expanding stateside three years ago. Globally, Funding Circle claims to have lent a total of more than £5 billion pounds, or $6.4 billion, including a billion pounds during the first half of 2018 alone.

The startup’s revenue has grown in lockstep. According to the IPO filing, Funding Circle saw annual sales nearly double last year, to 94.5 million pounds. It reached that milestone after recording a 78 percent compound annual growth rate from 2015 to 2017.

Funding Circle’s filing detailed that it aims to maintain sales growth of more than 40 percent in the “medium term” and on the longer run hopes to achieve profit margins of at least 35 percent before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The startup registered an operating loss of 27.3 million pounds, in the first half of 2018.

The IPO filing noted that Funding Circle will continue to prioritize growth over profitability in the medium-term. The startup specified that it will use the proceeds from the stock sale to fuel business expansion, an effort that is set to encompass both existing and new markets.

The cash infusion should boost Funding Circle’s growth plans in another way as well. Namely, the startup said it will use the cash infusion to build out a stronger balance sheet in a bid to gain more trust among investors, borrowers and regulators.

Funding Circle is already making headway in this area. The startup today announced that Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s sixth-largest investment management firm, has agreed to lend $1 billion to U.S. businesses via its platform over the next few years.

Image: Funding Circle