Launched in 2015, Trussle has secured a £4.5 million investment as it reaches the milestone of managing £1 billion worth of mortgages on behalf of homeowners across the UK.

Much like another local startup Habito - which last week raised £5.5m in Series A funding led by Silicon Valley-based Ribbit Capital - Trussle uses proprietary automation and a mortgage monitoring service to compare and track thousands of mortgage products from more than 90 lenders.

Orange Growth Capital, a European and Asian fintech VC and backers of peer-to-peer lending platform Zopa and online insurance broker Knip, has led the latest round of funding. Existing investors LocalGlobe, Zoopla, and Seedcamp, who together supported a £1.1 million seed round in February 2016, alongside angel investors Ed Wray, co-founder of Betfair, and Ian Hogarth, co-founder of Songkick, are also behind the deal.

Ishaan Malhi, CEO and founder of Trussle says: “All together it’s validation that we’ve uncovered a real consumer problem, and the technological innovation we’re starting to see from new entrants, as well as traditional brokers, suggests our innovative approach is having a real snowball effect.”

In September, Trussle launched an industry-first partnership with property portal Zoopla to allow buyers who start their property search online to find and finance their home in one seamless journey. The partnership is driving an average of £5 million worth of mortgage enquiries via the Zoopla website each day, says Malhi.

Further partnerships with comparison site uSwitch, online estate agent HouseSimple, and credit bureau Noddle, are also in the works.

Says Malhi: “Finding a mortgage has been a time-consuming, inconvenient, and frankly antiquated process for too long. Unfortunately this pain is also preventing people from remortgaging when the time is right. There are more than three million people losing an average of £3,500 per year across the UK, due to being on the wrong mortgage1. We’ll be helping put this issue firmly on the public agenda in 2017."