The U.K. government is starting to spend some of its £1.2 billion Business Finance Partnership fund, starting with a “peer-to-peer” lending companies, according to The Telegraph.

Peer-to-peer lending companies organize a loan for businesses and individuals without having to go to a bank. Funding Circle is rumored to have received £20 million. It focuses on the business loans side, with a marketplace where people can surf various investors and investment opportunities. The company says it has funding £65,526,520 in loans with 1,000 businesses using the site. The company was founded in 2010 and is otherwise backed by Index Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and angel investors.

Zopa is also rumored to have received £10 million. It handles consumer lending and says it has approved £253,737,220 in loans. It was founded in 2005 and is otherwise backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Balderton Capital, Wellington Partners, Tim Draper, and the Rowland family.

But this kind of lending structure is often unregulated, making it a risky move, albeit sometimes a move companies and individuals need to take in order to get favorable terms or work around bank loan rejections. The  Telegraph notes that these kinds of investments make by the U.K. government could be an effort to get a little more control over the peer-to-peer process, or a look inside its workings.

Others receiving funding from the partnership include Boost Capital, a venture capitalist firm, as well as other forms of lending solutions that cut out the banks.

London image via Shutterstock

Renters can now review a space’s potential for productivity with categories such as noise and Wi-Fi strength. There are rankings for “coolness,” which include the overall vibe of the space and the neighborhood. A community category wants to know what your co-workers were like, and if there was a potential for networking. Loosecubes has also added Facebook comments to the profiles of particular spaces, and a feature that will show who the regulars are at a particular location.

“Through shared workspace we’ve seen a lot of really great relationships formed both personally and professionally, co-founder Anthony Marinos told VentureBeat. “Because the vibe is more open, sparks fly.” Marinos says creating community is just as important as helping businesses rent out excess space.

Services such as Getaround (rent out your car) and Airbnb (rent out your home) have helped popularize the idea of collaborative consumption, another term for sharing for profit. There are lots of things in our garages or closets we own but never use, and there’s a good chance someone nearby could use them. With smartphones and social networks it’s easier than ever to connect to a pool of people who can harness the idling capacity of all that stuff. And now office space is no different.

Loosecubes has more than 1,300 listings spread across 534 cities worldwide, and its inventory has increased by 150 percent in the last six months, according to Marinos. Loosecubes’ website now lists an inventory worth more than $50 million, co-founder and chief executive officer Campbell McKellar told VentureBeat. And in New York City, where the company is located, there are more Looscubes locations than Starbucks. Loosecubes recently surpassed rival Regus in the number of office locations it offers. Marinos says that the average number of weekly reservation requests has increased by 600 percent since April.

Loosecubes is ideal for businesses that have extra space and want to make money renting it out. It’s common for new startups to rent desk spaces from a larger company until they get funding, or until they hire more people and outgrow the situation. Generally these arrangements are formal and somewhat longterm. Loosecubes makes it possible for entrepreneurs to rent space only when they need it.

Perhaps best of all, Loosecubes has a sweet portfolio of well-known companies renting out spare office space. As hard as it may be to get your resume in front of the decision makers at today’s hot startups, with Loosecubes you can work alongside Silicon Valley stars such as HotelTonight, Task Rabbit and Rickshaw Bags in San Francisco. In New York, the roster of Loosecubes office spaces includes Weldbilt Studio and the DUMBO Spot, both of which are in Brooklyn.

To date, Loosecubes has raised $1.2 million from Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, and friends and family.

Just this week, competing peer-to-peer lending company Lending Club secured a third round of funding for $25 million. It has raised $53 million in total. Prosper has raised a total of $58 million. The funding activity is a strong indicator that investors see peer-to-peer lending as a solid investment and possibly a blossoming alternative to unstable banks for both borrowers and lenders.

Prosper is similar to most peer-to-peer marketplaces, but uses an auction-based format to connect lenders with borrowers. Those interested in a loan create a listing for themselves by highlighting the amount they wish to secure, the interest rate they can pay back and an option to tell their story of why they need the cash. Lenders bid on the listings and, once the auction is over, Prosper combines the ones with the lowest rates and alerts the winning lenders. The borrower is then notified and receives their loan amount.

The San Francisco-based company, founded in 2006, helped pioneer the idea of peer-to-peer lending, even after receiving a cease-and-desist order from the SEC in November of 2008. The company eventually relaunched in July of 2009 and claims close to 1 million users and $194 million in loans, according to it’s website.

Existing investors all participated in the fourth round of funding, including Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners, Omidyar Network, QED Investors and Volition Capital.

Lending Club

Lending Club positions itself as an attractive alternative to the high costs of bank lending. The company brings together investors looking for high returns and borrowers searching for low interest rates.  The process works a lot like a bank loan: Borrowers fill out a loan application and investors can agree to provide funds. The system appears to have benefits for both loan investors, who can see returns of up to 9 percent, and borrowers, who can see interest rates as low as 8 percent, according to the company website.

There are several peer-to-peer lending companies, one of which is also also raising money. Prosper.com, one of the first websites for peer-to-peer lending, recently raised another $1 million for a total raised of $41 million. Another peer-to-peer company, People Capital, is taking a unique angle to the industry and focusing on student loans.

LendingClub has funded over 10,000 loans for a total of more than $103 million, but appears to decline more than it accepts. There are more than 100,000 declined loan requests reaching over $1 billion.

So, what are accepted borrowers using their loans to pay off? According to LendingClub, more than 60 percent use the loans to consolidate debt or pay off credit cards.

The Redwood City, California-based company, founded in 2007, recently secured a second round of funding for $12 million and at the same time period claimed to hold about 79 percent of the peer-to-peer lending market.

The new round was lead by Foundation Capital and joined by existing investors including Morgenthaler Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners.

Here’s a chart of LendingClub’s loan issuance: