Prosper.com, a social lending marketplace that connects borrowers with individual and institutional investors, this morning announced that it has raised $17.2 million in funding from new investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Crosslink Capital.
Existing investors Accel Partners, CompuCredit, Omidyar Network, Eric Schmidt’s TomorrowVentures and Volition Capital also participated in the round. → Read More
Peer-to-peer lending network Lending Club this morning announced it passed $10 million in monthly loan fundings for May 2010. The company claims that the milestone marks the first time any U.S. peer lending company has funded that amount of loans in a single calendar month.
Main rival Prosper is closing in on $200 million in personal loans funded in total – last time it has broken out the monthly statistics was for February 2010, when the company announced it had reached roughly $1.7 million in loan volume for that month.
In related news, Lending Club has appointed Scott Sanborn as chief marketing officer. → Read More
Prosper.com, a popular peer-to-peer lending marketplace in the U.S., has raised $14.7 million in Series D funding round from new investors TomorrowVentures and CompuCredit Holdings with existing investors Accel Partners; Benchmark Capital; DAG Ventures; Meritech Capital Partners; Omidyar Network; QED Investors; and Volition Capital participating in the round. This round of funding brings Prosper’s total funding to $57.7 million. TomorrowVentures happens to be the investment vehicle for Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Prosper pioneered the idea of concept of people-to-people lending in the U.S with its launch in 2006. Unfortunately, the startup hit a rough patch last year when the SEC stopped all lending on the platform because the company didn’t register as a seller of securities. With the new climate of heightened regulatory oversight in light of the financial meltdown, the SEC is being more judicious about overseeing financial institutions. → Read More
Prosper.com, a popular peer-to-peer lending marketplace in the U.S., has received a $1 million infusion from Nigel Morris, co-founder of Capital One, via his venture capital firm QED Investors. This brings the company’s total funding to over $41 million from Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Fidelity Ventures and Benchmark Capital, among other investors.
Prosper pioneered the idea of concept of people-to-people lending in the U.S with its launch in 2006. Unfortunately, the startup hit a rough patch last year when the SEC stopped all lending on the platform because the company didn’t register as a seller of securities. With the new climate of heightened regulatory oversight in light of the financial meltdown, the SEC is being more judicious about overseeing financial institutions. → Read More
TechCrunch 50 startup Sprowtt has a radical, yet potentially compelling idea launching today—the startup lets ordinary startups and small businesses conduct a “Sprowtt IPO,” which is basically similar to the traditional IPO process.
Via Sprowtt, anyone can participate in the funding of companies. Potential investors log on to the site, set up a profile with detailed financial and bank account information. Then they are given a list of companies they can invest in based on their financial capabilities. Investors can check out videos of startups, the amount of money the startup has already raised, and their products and see detailed business plans, on which investors can share their comments. Potential investors can also access the offering circulars and shareholder agreements for the startup. → Read More
Good news for P2P lending and trading platform Prosper as it concludes its 9-month hiatus during which it was not allowed to continue its loan operations in the United States.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is now greenlighting Prosper to facilitate peer-to-peer lending in 14 states with more on the way, borrowing nearly nationwide. Prosper is now the first and thus only Internet auction-based P2P loans platform to have its registration statement declared effective by the SEC, which is evidently good news for other players in the P2P lending industry, such as Lending Club.
SEC’s approval of Prosper’s secondary marketplace, which enables people to loan money directly to other individual and institutional investors, comes a couple of months after the startup had already reignited its lending platform in the State of California. → Read More
The financial crisis has made a lasting impact on small businesses around the world and here at home in the United States. With the credit crunch creating a virtual standstill of lending, small businesses in the U.S. are facing an uphill battle to find funds, especially if their financial history isn’t stellar. Kiva.org, one of the web’s most interesting innovators in the micro-lending space, is hoping to come to the aid of U.S. entrepreneurs and small businesses by launching a pilot expansion that would allow individuals anywhere to make small loans to low-income U.S. entrepreneurs through Kiva’s platform.
Kiva is a peer-to-peer lending site that facilitates micropayment loans between citizen lenders and extremely low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries. Through Kiva’s platform, anyone can loan $25 or more to support an entrepreneur and the specific progress of the loan can be tracked from initial funding to repayment. Upon receiving repayment, lenders can withdraw their funds from Kiva or lend again to another entrepreneur, thereby continuing the lending cycle. → Read More
Prosper, the people-to-people lending service that launched way back in May 2006, has found itself on a rocky road so far. Last October, Prosper suspended new lending in order to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission to create a secondary marketplace for the loans on its site (the SEC wanted to evaluate whether the company should register as a securities broker, as evidenced later when it formally issued its cease-and-desist letter).
But now Prosper is back despite the fact that the SEC hasn’t yet approved its operations, and while they have respected the requested silence up during the six-month hiatus, they haven’t exactly stalled development of the service.
P2P money lending service Lending Club has closed a $12 million Series B round with Morgenthaler Ventures as the lead and joined by existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners. The total capital invested in the company is now $30 million. (It raised $12 million in angel and Series A funding in 2007, and then another $6 million in a Series A extension in September, 2008).
The company, which started out as a Facebook application for social money lending, hasn’t had it easy so far. In April 2008, it put a hold on lending activities because of regulatory issues, and ultimately filed for SEC registration over the Summer of that year. Then the economy collapsed and Lending Club along with other P2P lenders were heavily affected. The SEC suspended loan activities one of Lending Club’s main competitors, Prosper, at the end of last year, citing obvious reasons that these companies should be regulated by the SEC as a securities seller. → Read More
Last month, peer-to-peer lender Prosper stopped all new lending on its site because of scrutiny by the SEC. Prosper agreed to register under the Securities Act, a process which can take months.
Yesterday, the SEC issued its formal cease-and-desist letter (embedded below or download PDF), outlining its reasoning for characterizing Prosper as a seller of investment, something prosper had vigorously resisted in the past by arguing that it was merely a marketplace matching lenders and borrowers. But the SEC is having none of that.
And it is not just Prosper, but all P2P lenders, that are on notice. Loanio, a new entrant into the P2P lending arena that just launched last month, has suspended new loans until it registers with the SEC as well (see notice below). And last April, competitor Lending Club was the first P2P lender to temporarily cease operations (the SEC approved its registration, and its members are now lending again in about half the states, including California which gave it the go-ahead last week). → Read More
Prosper and other peer-to-peer lenders like Zopa and Lending Club may turn out to be collateral damage from the credit crisis. Yesterday, Prosper suspended new lending in order to register with the S.E.C to create a secondary marketplace for the loans on its site. As recently as Monday, Prosper didn’t think it would have to register as a seller of securities. But the new climate of heightened regulatory oversight in light of the current financial meltdown has changed all of that.
Lending Club previously had to do the same thing and suspend new lending last April . (The S.E.C just gave it the green light to start lending again on Tuesday). Zopa shut down it’s P2P lending site in the U.S. last week.
Even before the increased regulatory scrutiny, P2P lending took a massive hit along with the rest of the financial industry. → Read More
If you are having trouble paying for college, maybe you can hit up your social network for a loan. That’s the idea behind GreenNote, another peer-to-peer lending startup that is launching this week. (The site is still going through load testing, but should be up fully by Wednesday). Prosper, Zopa, and Lending Club (which is under regulatory scrutiny) already offer general P2P loans, but GreenNote is more like Fynanz or China’s QiFang, in that it is focussed only on student loans. These tend to have lower default rates and there is a rising need for them. The funding gap between the average four-year cost of going to a state college and available federal loans is at least $22,000, according to the company. For private universities, that gap can be more than $100,000. P2P lending startups like GreenNote see that gap as a huge opportunity. In aggregate, there was a $113 billion funding gap in 2007, $95 billion of which was paid for by personal and family funds. But GreenNote is not about matching high-risk borrowers with lenders who want a higher return. It is about tapping into the altruism of family and friends who want to chip in to help finance the college education of a student they already know. CEO Akash Agarwal says: This is really getting your social network to help you—asking your social network to step up, and not asking for a hand-out. The loans are designed to mimic a federal Stafford loan—the interest rate at launch is 6.8 percent. The rate is fixed, payments are deferred for up to five years, and then students have 10 years to pay back the loan. No co-signers are needed, and GreenNote loans are open to non-U.S. citizens. Lenders can pitch in as little as $100. In that sense, it takes more of a micro-finance approach. GreenNote keeps track of who owes what to whom, takes care of the paperwork, collects the funds, and then distributes the payments after the student graduates and starts paying back the loan. GreenNote takes a 2 percent fee up front from the student out of the principle of the loan, and another 1 percent from the lenders out of the interest. (Fynanz, in contrast, only takes a 1 percent fee). GreenNote raised $4.2 million in a series A round last October from Menlo Ventures and Glenbrook Partners. CrunchBase Information GreenNote Fynanz Prosper Lending Club → Read More
Despite sub-prime loan worries rocking the economy, peer-to-peer loans are gaining some traction. You’d think loans between individuals would be much riskier than loans from a bank, but it turns out that individuals can be more risk averse than banks when it comes to lending out money. If you look at Prosper, the leader in P2P lending with more than $100 million in loans out so far, only 7 percent of its loans in October were sub-prime, despite their higher interest rates. Prosper is about to get a lot more competition. After more than a year of waiting, UK-based Zopa got the go-ahead from regulators to launch its U.S. Website last week. Zopa, which doesn’t allow sub-prime loans at all, has a 0.1% default rate, whereas Prosper has a 3 percent default rate. And Lending Club, which started as a Facebook-only application, just got clearance today to operate nationwide. (It had been awaiting approval from half a dozen states, including big ones like California, Michigan, Illinois, and Pennsylvania). Lending Club launched six months ago on Facebook, and opened up its own Website three months ago. In that time, its members have issued 489 loans worth $3.5 million. Of that amount, only $16,000 worth are between 16 and 30 days late on payments (see stats here). It also does not allow sub-prime loans. Lending Club’s loan portfolio is too small and its loans have been out too short a time to really know what its average default rate will be. But if it can match its larger competitors, it should do fine. Social lending is here to stay. CrunchBase Information Lending Club Prosper Zopa Kiva Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
U.K.-based peer to peer lending startup Zopa is gearing up for their U.S. launch. Reports of the launch have been circulating for some time (WSJ), but now it seems only days away. The service will be available at us.zopa.com, but is currently under password protection. Zopa’s peer to peer lending service differs from U.S. rivals by working with credit unions to offer person-to-person loans instead of a loans coming directly from lenders on the service like Prosper and Lending Club (works through Facebook). GlobalFunder.com is a yet-to-launch competitor. With Zopa, lenders will place their money in Zopa branded CDs that are then loaned out online. Borrowers apply for loans through their online community by posting their case for the loan and filling out relevant details about their credit risk. Interest rates on five year loans can range from 8.75% to 16.99%, depending on their credit risk. It’s worth noting that Zopa’s investor, Benchmark also invested in Prosper. The lending market is anticipated to be very large. According to the research firm Online Banking Report, around $100 million in new P2P loans will be issued this year, mostly by Prosper, with new loans growing to as much as $1 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2017. Prosper already registered an S-1 with the SEC and reported $96.4 million in loans. Adding further details to the launch, Allen Stern received an email outlining some differences between the U.S. and U.K. (which TCUK covered) versions. The key differences listed are: No risk for investors. Your funds will be federally insured. No more worrying about whether your borrowers will pay your loan back. Pick who you want to help. Investors will choose exactly who they want to help. Set your rate. Investors will choose how much they want to earn, up to a ceiling. No waiting. Borrowers will get their loans immediately upon approval. Lower your monthly payment. Borrowers can actually reduce their loan payments after they’ve borrowed. They’ll do that using rich profiles… CrunchBase Information Zopa Prosper Lending Club Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
One of the most disruptive startups in the financial industry is Prosper, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace. Since its launch in February, 2006, Prosper has attracted more than 450,000 members who have loaned $96.4 million to each other. There is so much liquidity on Prosper now that the startup wants to create a secondary market for loans on the site. Right now, if you loan money to someone on Prosper, you have to wait for the term of the loan to expire to get all of your money and interest back (unless the debt is paid back early). A secondary market would allow individual lenders on Prosper to sell loans to each other right away, and perhaps even package them together. Such a secondary market could make Prosper a more appealing place for larger financial institutions to invest in. Hints of what Prosper is up to can be found in an S-1 registration the company filed yesterday with the SEC (see press release). The part of the S-1 (which is not yet effective) that caught my eye was this: The Lender Participant Rights are associated with the $500,000,000 in aggregate principal amount of Notes to which this prospectus relates. This amount represents the aggregate principal amount of Notes that Prosper expects will be originated on the Platform during the one-year period beginning on the date of this prospectus together with the principal amount of Notes that have been originated on the Platform prior to the date of this prospectus. In plain English, that means that Prosper expects that the cumulative amount of loans on the site a year from now will be worth up to $500 million. That would still be peanuts for most banks, but would represent a fivefold increase from the amount of loans originated on the site so far. Prosper has raised $40 million from Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, the Omidyar Network, and Fidelity Ventures. CrunchBase Information Prosper Zopa Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Peer to peer lending service Lending Club will close a $10.26 million series A round of financing from Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners tomorrow. This comes a few months after the company’s $2 million angel round. Coinciding with the investment, Jeff Crowe and Dan Ciporin (former ceo of shopping.com) are joining Lending Club’s board of directors. Similar to other P2P lending sites (Prosper, Zopa, Kiva), LendingClub matches borrowers and lenders. However, LendingClub doesn’t work through their own website, but solely through Facebook on the application they launched at the F8 platform launch conference. Borrows and lenders a linked up using their “LendingMatch” system, which recommends loans based on credit and their social relationships to each other. The idea being that trusted relationships make lending more likely and defaults less likely. The application currently has over 13,000 installs. Unlike Prosper, interest rates aren’t determined through bidding, but calculated based on the borrowers credit score, debt to income ratio, and amount of the loan. There are no hidden fees, and the interest rate is fixed for three years. In July the service surpassed $500K in loans. They recently claimed a little more than 4 out of 5 loans get funded and haven’t reported any defaults or late payments. It’s still the early days for this industry, and as TC commenters point out, it’s very much a case of Caveat Emptor. → Read More
Peer to peer lending startup, Prosper, is expanding operations to Japan and other Asian countries as a shared partnership with Tokyo-based SBI Holdings, Inc. SBI will be helping prosper navigate Asia’s regulatory environment. SBI Group has a market capitalization in excess of $8 billion and consists of 65 consolidated subsidiaries and 12 affiliated companies, including 9 public companies. Prosper handles loans of up to $25,000 (the average funded loan is $5,000), broken into smaller loans to distribute risk. Money for the loan is then supplied by Prosper lenders bidding for the most attractive interest rates. Prosper earns revenue by taking 1% of the loan amount in fees from the borrower up front, and charging a 0.5% yearly loan maintenance fee to lenders. Prosper currently has over $79 million in funded loans and more than 380,000 members. So far it appears a lot of those members are logging on to pay off credit card debt at a lower rate. Prosper’s backer, Benchmark, has also invested in another P2P lender, Zopa. It’s ironic to see these peer to peer lending startups expanding at the same moment the collapse of the sub prime lending market sends waves through the mortgage market. Similarly, these startups will be sink or swim based on their ability to effectively manage risk. Prosper is managing risk by encouraging transparency, automatically deducting monthly loan payments, and tracking reputations. Borrowing groups are another risk management tool, both helping first time borrowers get some initial credibility (and lower rates) while encouraging the network to police itself by tying together their reputations. → Read More
P2P lending site Prosper is doing well enough to swallow another $20 million in venture capital, the company is announcing today. The company has now raised $40 million in capital. The round was led by DAG Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners. Existing investors Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, Fidelity Ventures and Omidyar Network also participated. Prosper allows members to request loans of up to $25,000 (the average funded loan is $5,000), and then other members offer to fund the loan at various interest rates. Prosper breaks the loan up into multiple pieces to distribute risk, and then funds from the lenders offering the most attractive interest rates. Prosper says they hav 330,000 users and have funded $70 million in loans. Zopa, a similar company, is headquartered in London. Previous coverage here. → Read More
On Tuesday Prosper.com, a person-to-person lending site that launched in February, will announce a couple of fairly significant milestones: 100,000 members and $20 million in funded loans. They reached both milestones faster than UK-based competitor Zopa, which was recently named a Busines 2.0 “Disruptor.” Prosper allows members to request loans of up to $25,000 (the average funded loan is $5,000), and then other members offer to fund the loan at various interest rates. Prosper breaks the loan up into multiple pieces to distribute risk, and then funds from the lenders offering the most attractive interest rates. Over 4,000 loans have been funded since the site launched in February 2006. Prosper earns revenue by taking 1% of the loan amount in fees from the borrower up front, and charging a 0.5% yearly loan maintenance fee to lenders. Interesting fact: Benchmark invested in both Zopa and Prosper, and the two will soon be competeting directly as Zopa expands to the U.S. market. → Read More
San Francisco-based Prosper launched today (Prosper was called Circleone during its stealth stage). Like London-based (and Benchmark funded) Zopa, Prosper is a marketplace for borrowers and lenders. Individual borrowers say how much they need to borrow (up to $25,000) and the maximum interest rate they will pay. Interested lenders say how much they want to lend, and at what rate. Prosper takes the lowest price lenders and groups them into a loan. It generally takes 2-4 days to close a loan, according to Prosper. However, a borrower can request an expedited loan, which will take the first lenders who meet the minimum requirements for amount and interest rate. Prosper charges a number of fees, including a 1% closing fee to the borrower and a 0.5% annual loan maintenance fee for lenders. Benchmark has funded both Zopa and Prosper. Other Prosper investors include Accel, Fidelity and Omidyar. → Read More
