SINGAPORE - Homegrown crowd-financing platform MoolahSense has closed its first funding campaign for an education firm, raising more than double its targeted amount of $100,000.

MoolahSense is an online marketplace which connects businesses seeking funds with prospective investors.

Some 44 individuals submitted investment offers totalling $207,000 for the campaign, aimed at helping Smaths Consulting - an education centre for academic subjects such as Mathematics, Physics, Economics, as well as adult learning - expand its business next year. The offers ranged from $1,000 to as much as $30,000.

Only 19 of the investors were successfully matched to Smaths Consulting via the campaign, with the interest rate set at 9.9 per cent.

The excess or non-allocated funds of $107,000 will be returned to the respective investors.

"The large number of investors is a clear indication of the popularity and potential of a crowd-investing, peer-to-peer lending system in Singapore," noted MoolahSense co-founder and chief executive Lawrence Yong.

"The investing appetite is clearly strong among individuals who are eager to put their money in promising small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in exchange for an attractive fixed return."