Looking to broaden their presence in Silicon Valley the e-commerce firm JD.com partnered with accelerator Plug and Play; JD.com said it will share technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud and smart supply chain tech with the new program; they will look to focus on companies in robotics, AI, AR/VR and the cloud; “Partnering with Plug and Play, we hope to unlock the potential of the next generation of companies, and help them succeed both in the US and China,” JD’s chief strategy office Dr. Jianwen Liao told TechCrunch in a statement. Source.
At LendIt Fintech USA 2019, Boe Hartman, the CTO of Marcus, revealed in a keynote stage interview that Marcus was...
CommonBond closed their fifth and largest securitization which contained $248 million of refinanced student loans; the senior tranches were rated by Moody’s, S&P and DBRS and received ratings of Aa2, AA and AA (high) respectively; the deal was four times oversubscribed; according to David Klein, CommonBond CEO and co-founder, “Investor demand for CommonBond paper has never been greater. The strong market reception is a reflection of our pristine credit quality, continued ratings progression, and track record of consistent results. As a programmatic issuer, we look forward to continuing to bring consistently high performing bonds to the market, providing investors with world-class capital deployment options.” Source
The Fed made one increase to the federal funds rate in December 2016 and economic market activity appears to be improving with the election of President-Elect Donald Trump; Rohit Arora of Biz2Credit says the outlook is optimistic for small business owners in 2017; with only one rate increase, borrowing rates are still low for small business owners and lenders are approving a higher percentage of loans; Donald Trump's plans to alleviate some of the burdens from Dodd-Frank on banks is also likely to help approval rates for small business owners. Source
Digital banking fintech Stash has raised a $112mn series F round from LendingTree and T. Rowe Price; previous investors Breyer...
The company has raised its Series B round in an effort to expand the number of retail partners; Menlo Ventures led the equity portion of the investment with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, and RRE Ventures, among others; Victory Park Capital is providing the debt facility; founded in 2014 the company provides a white label solution for retailers to offer financing to their customers; they compete directly with firms such as Affirm, PayPal Credit and Klarna. Source
Consumer lenders Ally Financial and Synchrony Financial do not yet believe the current crisis will be as bad as the...
This is a post from Sasha Orloff who co-founded LendUp and Mission Lane and previously was Senior Vice President at...
Small business lending marketplace Lendio is looking to hire 200 full time small business loan agents to help meet demand;...
Cadre operates a real estate investment platform and recently shared that they are laying off 28 employees due to the...