LendingTree (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Business are raising decent amount of startup funding in 2014 from a number of diverse sources. If we take a look at 2013, small business in the fields of real estate, mortgage, lending, and wealth management raised over $800 million in the United States alone. 2014 hasn’t let off the accelerate with late stage funding coming in at $238 million. Financial services is a big trend and disruptive companies are very popular with venture funding firms.

The large market in financial services and the ability of a startup to generate revenue quickly has led to the funding interest. The large firms already in the space are allowing the smaller start-ups to move into areas that generate billions annually, according to experts in the field. OnDeck and Lending Tree are two small-business loan providers that have seen investments increase to meet the needs in the industry. These two companies are going against a funding trend that begin at the end of 2008 with the start of the recession in America.

Another area that has investors interested is college loan refinancing. CommonBond and a company called Upstart are working in this space. The new companies offer better services and have moved much of their application processes online. They focus on the next generation of earners in the US, generation Y, that are looking for faster and more technologically advanced offerings.

Kapitall is an upstart that just received funding from Bendigo Partners that provides a new trading platform for active investors.

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