Funding Circle Shares Jump to 52-Week High as Half-Year Profit Nearly Quadruples

Funding Circle shares hit a 52-week high after the SME lender said first-half revenue rose 50% and pre-tax profit nearly quadrupled to £23 million.

Funding Circle Holdings PLC, (LSE:FCH) the UK’s leading small business finance platform, saw its stock surge on Thursday after a trading update revealed accelerating growth across its lending and payments businesses.

Shares closed Thursday at 187.2p, up almost 6% from Wednesday’s close of 177.00p, after touching an intraday high of 215p, a new 52-week high. On Friday morning shares were trading at 191.28p, up 2.2% on the session, extending the previous day’s gains. The stock remains well below its 440p flotation price from 2018, according to Interactive Investor.

Half-year revenue up 50%

In its half-year trading update, released before markets opened on Thursday, Funding Circle said revenue grew to about £138 million in the six months to 30 June, up 50% from £92 million a year earlier. Profit before tax rose to roughly £23 million, from £6 million. Credit extended climbed to £1.7 billion from £1.1 billion, while assets under management grew to £3.3 billion from £2.8 billion. The company said the result keeps it “firmly on track” to hit its 2026 guidance of at least £235 million revenue and at least £35 million profit before tax.

The update extends a run of upgrades: Funding Circle said in January it had beaten its 2026 revenue guidance a year early, and full-year 2025 results in March showed revenue up 28% to £204.3 million with profit before tax rising sharply from £3.4 million to £20.3 million. Thursday’s figures mark a further acceleration on that momentum.

Chief executive Lisa Jacobs said: “It’s been another standout six months for Funding Circle. We’ve built upon last year’s momentum with strong revenue and profit growth, driven by our continued product development and market demand.” She added that the cash-generative Term Loans business has allowed the company to scale its FlexiPay and Card products. Funding Circle has bought back £72 million of shares to date, equivalent to 18% of its issued share capital.

Lisa Jacobs launched a turnaround strategy in 2022 focused on profitable, multi-product growth, following heavy losses in earlier years. That strategy has driven successive periods of double-digit revenue growth and, more recently, expanding profitability, culminating in Thursday’s update.

The average analyst price target for Funding Circle stands at 219.6p, implying further upside from current levels.

Funding Circle will report interim results on 8 September, when markets will look for confirmation that the strong first-half momentum has carried into the second half. With guidance reiterated and shares near multi-year highs, the update will be closely watched for signs of whether the growth can be sustained into the traditionally quieter summer months.

In a note in June Edison analyst Milosz Papst said: “Funding Circle is capital light, cash generative and growing profits quickly, with PBT up c 70% in FY25, yet it trades on roughly 10.9x consensus FY27 earnings, a discount to the fintech and data peers it resembles. We see two re-rating catalysts: continued delivery against guidance and wider recognition that a platform bearing little of a bank’s funding and liquidity risk should not be valued like one. We believe the risk/reward remains skewed to the upside.”