I have been out in San Francisco this week visiting with the management teams at Prosper and Lending Club. I arrived at the Prosper offices yesterday morning and was greeted by some big news. CEO Chris Larsen shared that they have just received a new round of venture capital funding.
Here are the details of this funding round. Prosper issued 8,996,739 shares of its Series F Preferred Stock to a group of new investors that includes IDG Capital Partners for an aggregate purchase price of $9.0 million. Prosper will not be issuing a press release about this funding and they have given me permission to make this announcement.
This funding was unsolicited and came at a higher valuation than the round that closed in June. It brings the total cash on their balance sheet to over $25 million and gives them even more flexibility now to ramp up operations. The mood at Prosper headquarters was understandably jubilant when Chris Larsen announced the news to employees.
I think this funding is great news not just for Prosper but for all of peer to peer lending. Their CFO stated to me yesterday that Prosper expects to reach break even in 12-18 months at somewhere around $30 million in new loans per month. This new funding should easily see them past that point even allowing for slower growth than expected.
All p2p investors benefit from having two strong and successful competitors. It certainly looks like we have that now. The future keeps looking brighter for peer to peer lending.
