LendingCrowd review 2026, business loans of £75,000 to £500,000 from an Edinburgh lender

Who LendingCrowd are

Edinburgh Alternative Finance Limited (SC468392) was incorporated in Scotland on 27 January 2014, spent its first fortnight as Edinburgh Alternative Financial Services Limited, and took its present name on 11 February 2014. The about page gives 1 October 2014 as the launch date of the LendingCrowd platform and records FCA authorisation in November 2016. The registered office is at 50 Lothian Road on Festival Square in Edinburgh, and the company page describes Edinburgh Alternative Finance as the parent and the technology behind the lending brand.

The footer on every page states that LendingCrowd is the trading name of Edinburgh Alternative Finance Limited, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under firm reference number 670991. The entry can be read at register.fca.org.uk. A term loan to a limited company or LLP is not a regulated credit agreement, so the permission matters most for the personal guarantee that sits behind each loan.

The scale is set out in two places. The homepage counts over £600m of lending and more than 4,000 loans to SMEs since the 2014 launch, and a post dated 1 July 2026 records the business appearing in the first Sunday Times Scotland Fast 50, being named the fastest growing technology company in Scotland in the Sunday Times 100 Tech 2026, and ranking 28th in Deloitte's 2025 EMEA Technology Fast 500. The about page adds live book figures at the time of reading, an average loan of £118,429 over an average term of 54 months.

What LendingCrowd lends

One product, a fixed-term business loan of £75,000 to £500,000. The term runs from 6 months to 5 years, and the business loans page carries a 12 to 24 month option for a shorter need. Up to £350,000 the loan is unsecured against a personal guarantee from a director who owns a home; above £350,000 the lender takes a charge or asset security as well as the guarantee, and in particular cases asks an associated company for a guarantee too. Repayments are fixed and monthly on an agreed date, the first falling four weeks after the funds land.

The published uses run from stock purchase and cashflow through a premises fit-out, refurbishment, a management buyout, buying another business, refinancing existing borrowing and general working capital for growth. Overpayments of £5,000 or more are accepted during the term, and early settlement is permitted. As a product this sits squarely in the term business loan market rather than in revolving credit or asset-backed lending, and a borrower wanting a facility secured on plant would look to the asset finance lenders on the panel instead.

Who LendingCrowd lends to

Four criteria appear on the homepage and again in the FAQ. The borrower is a limited company or an LLP; it is incorporated in England, Scotland or Wales; it has traded for at least 2 years; and its annual turnover is £100,000 or more. The FAQ adds that the business should be trading profitably, and that a director gives a personal guarantee, with home ownership expected of the guarantor on an unsecured loan.

The Edinburgh base shows in the footprint. Scotland is inside the criteria on the same terms as England and Wales, and the 1 July 2026 post frames the lender as Scotland's fastest growing technology company while lending across Britain. The credit underwriting team is described on the Edinburgh Alternative Finance page as holding more than 150 years of combined SME finance experience across three teams covering underwriting, lending operations and servicing, and the business loans page says each application is looked at on its own facts before a risk band is assigned.

A company trading for under 2 years, one turning over less than £100,000, or one needing under £75,000 sits outside those published criteria, and our panel holds other unsecured lenders for each of those cases.

How an application runs

The FAQ lists what the lender wants to see: two years of filed accounts with the latest set no more than 15 months old, the last three months of bank statements, details of current borrowing, a description of what the money is for, and management information where the business has it. An applicant creates an account and submits those documents online, the credit team assesses the case individually and places it in a risk band, and the FAQ commits to a response within 48 hours of receiving the application, weekends excluded.

Once the loan is agreed and the paperwork signed, the business loans page says the money can be in the account the same working day. Repayments start four weeks later and continue monthly for the agreed term of 6 to 60 months. The homepage and the about page both describe the business as institutionally funded, so the loan is written from committed capital rather than listed for individual investors.

Through us the accounts, the bank statements and the purpose go to LendingCrowd and to the other unsecured lenders on the panel in one pack, put together by a named case handler. We arrange the loan; LendingCrowd reads the case and makes its own decision. Enquiring does not affect your credit score.

LendingCrowd on our panel

At September 2026 our catalogue held 1 live LendingCrowd product in the unsecured business loans category, sized £75,000 up to £350,000 over 12 months up to 5 years. The top of that span is the £350,000 point at which the lender's own page moves from unsecured to secured lending, and the term floor of 12 months sits above the 6 months the lender publishes because the entry describes the product as our catalogue records it. Panel composition changes.

Across the panel at September 2026 we counted 43 lender brands with a live unsecured loan for a Scottish business, 39 that lend unsecured to a non-homeowner director and 21 that consider a company trading for under a year. Those are counts of brands with at least one live product against each criterion, not a description of LendingCrowd's criteria, which ask for 2 years of trading and a homeowner guarantor on an unsecured loan.