| Website | lendingclub.com |
| Category | Web |
| Employees |
| Total | $12.3M |
| Angel, 5/07 | $2M |
| Series A, 8/07 Canaan Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners | $10.3M |
Lending Club is a p2p lending site that matches lenders with borrowers. The site uses the Facebook application platform and other social networks and online communities to connect lenders with borrowers, due in part to social networks’ viral nature and the fact that friends trust lending to other friends. The loans are aimed at good-credit borrowers, and are primarily used for credit card refinancing and small business loans.
Lending Club loans have fixed interest rates with average loan durations of three years. Borrowers have to go through a rigorous credit check and grading process before they can start receiving loan requests. Lending Club claims to have high credit standards and they turn away a lot of too-risky borrowers.
Other p2p lending sites include Zopa, Prosper and Kiva.
| Website | lendingclub.com |
| Blog | blog.lendingclub.com |
| Stage | Live |
| Launch Date | May 24, 2007 |
| Tags | p2p-lending, peer-to-peer-lending, social-lending, person-to-person-lending, people-to-people-lending |
Lending Club makes borrowers go through a credit assessment and hand out credit grades ranging from A-G. Lenders can browse borrowers’ profiles and find someone they want to lend to depending on the amount of risk they are willing to take or depending on who the borrower is (like a friend).
Borrowers can use anonymous screen names to post their loan requests on the Lending Club Facebook application. Most of the loan requests are for consolidating debt so most borrowers probably don’t want their credit histories to be public information. On the other hand, being open with potential lenders can increase the chance of landing a loan.
According to Lending Club, average loan sizes clock in around $5,500, with $1,000 being the minimum loan size and $25,000 the max. Borrowers with low credit grades have higher average interest rates than borrowers with high credit grades.
