Jonathan Snyder has developed the Philadelphia Capital Consortium to provide increased capital availability to small businesses; Snyder developed a process that allows Philadelphia small businesses to submit a form which is then sent to the Consortium's lenders; Snyder directs the process and interested lenders respond to the inquiry within 10 days; the Consortium has completed four loans and is currently adding new lenders to its network, including online lender Credibility Capital. Source
SoFi is becoming one of the US's largest and most comprehensive marketplace lenders. Since launching in 2011 they have originated over $15 billion in loans. They market themselves as a new kind of finance company and recently acquired Zenbanx, expanding their products to deposit accounts. SoFi also offers student loan refinancing, mortgage loans, personal loans, wealth management and life insurance.
In Lend Academy's recent podcast with SoFi, CEO Mike Cagney provides some insight on how the company might be valued on a per customer basis. Mike Cagney says larger banks are valued at approximately $10,000 to $100,000 per customer. SoFi currently expects to have 500,000 customers by the end of 2017 and 2 million customers in the next two to three years; at a value of $50,000 per SoFi customer, this would imply a $100 billion valuation. Source
According to a report from GlobalCapital, Jefferies and Lending Club are partnering on a new securitization for Arcadia Funds; the portfolio is expected to include approximately $300 million of prime consumer loans from Lending Club. Source
loanDepot has originated $100 billion in loans through a unique business model that facilitates loans through both an online platform and branch offices located throughout the US; Lend Academy provides more details on their business and recent milestone in their article; in 2016 loanDepot originated $38 billion in loans and since 2010 it has been growing loan volume at an average annual rate of 70%; the company acquires half a million potential borrowers per month and offers mortgage loans, mortgage refinancing, personal loans and home equity loans; Anthony Hsieh, loanDepot's CEO, cites their non-bank status and agile technology as leading factors for their rapid growth in loans and customer acquisition; mortgage lending is one area of the credit market with significant opportunity for market share gains from advanced technological solutions and loanDepot has successfully capitalized on the market opportunity. Source
SupportPay is an app that provides a unique solution for managing child support payments; in 2016 the firm was one of only a few female led fintech venture capital fundraises; Sherri Atwood raised $4.1 million for development of SupportPay which offers a digital solution for receiving child support and tracking child care expenses; the increased transparency the child support app provides has helped the firm gain interest from state agencies and legal firms managing divorce cases involving child support. Source
President Donald Trump has issued an executive order requiring the Treasury secretary and regulators to come up with a plan to overhaul Dodd-Frank and its over 400 regulations; the banking industry's tighter regulations have been a factor helping the success of marketplace lenders since the financial crisis and deregulation in the sector could create new challenges and increased competition for marketplace lenders; as the government begins to take deregulatory actions for traditional banks it also seems that marketplace lending has reached a phase likely to see increased regulations and involvement from regulators; these two forces along with other market factors could change the competitive landscape for the marketplace lending industry. Source
Legislators have reintroduced a bill that would enable alternative credit scoring to be used by Fannie and Freddie for evaluation of mortgage loans; these government sponsored enterprises currently use a FICO credit scoring model which legislators believe is outdated; legislators have now proposed the Credit Score Competition Act which would allow for use of alternative credit scoring models that also take into consideration a broader range of factors. Source
Real estate marketplace lender Better Mortgage has raised $15 million in a new funding round bringing its total valuation to $220 million; the funding was provided by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Pine Brook Partners; the firm seeks to offer fast approvals for home loans and uses advanced algorithms to match borrower attributes with lending criteria from 20 large home loan buyers; launched in January 2016, the firm has funded over $500 million in home loans and is targeting $1.5 billion in originations for 2017. Source
Think Finance cites Morgan Stanley's 2015 estimates for the marketplace lending industry which predict global marketplace lending will reach $290 billion by 2020; in their featured blog post they report on five key areas for platforms to achieve long term success; credit modeling, platform costs and differentiation are a few of the factors they focus on; Think Finance offers a full suite of services to online lenders to help them achieve success in branding, marketing, risk underwriting, portfolio management, loan originations and many other related lending services. Sponsored Blog Post
Float will offer credit lines for US consumers in California and Utah; based in Los Angeles the company also announced a $3 million funding round from finance and tech industry angel investors; the company plans to expand to all 50 states over the next six to 12 months. Source