Shares in peer-to-peer lender DirectMoney surged after Alceon, an alternative investment manager with more than $1 billion of assets under management, took a strategic stake.

A short time ago, the shares were up almost 30% to $0.035.

The equity investment by Alceon includes an initial placement of $600,000 at $0.042 a share, a 56% premium to the price at close of trading on Friday, for a 3.1% holding.

Alceon, which has been prominent in financing apartment developments across Australia, will also be granted an equal number of call options enabling it to increase its investment by $1.14 million at $0.08 a share, a 196% premium.

“The investment will be used to fund a range of innovation initiatives to grow the Company’s personal loan business,” says Anthony Nantes, Chief Executive Officer, DirectMoney.

“As a strategic investor with deep knowledge of the sector, this investment (by Alcean) both validates and endorses the company’s achievements to date along with our strategic vision, which sees us fast becoming the wiser choice in personal loans for all Australians.”

Daniel Chersky, Executive Director at Alceon said: “We believe they have the team and technology platform to be a major participant in Australia’s large and fast evolving consumer finance sector and look forward to using Alceon’s experience in credit and fintech investing to add value to the company as it embarks on its next phase of growth.”

The online consumer lending platform, which floated on the ASX in July 2015, operates a marketplace writing unsecured personal loans for three- and five-year terms.

The company is on the process of changing its name to Wisr Limited.

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