LendIt Recap: News Headlines You Need to Know

Al Goldstein of Avant speaking at the LendIt USA 2016 conference in San Francisco, CA, USA on April 11, 2016. (photo by Gabe Palacio)

As the industry wrapped up one of the biggest conferences of the year, here are some notable company announcements worth filing away:

Chicago-based online lender Avant named former UBS executive Raj Vora to lead the company’s capital raising efforts. Vora will lead strategy for its investment vehicles.

New York-based Student loan refinancer Lendkey crossed $1 billion in origination and deployment

Small business lender National Funding appointed first female president Torrie Inouye. Inouye headed data and analytics for the firm where she drove customer acquisition and underwriting.

Another millennial lender on the block raised Series A funding. New York-based online lender Pave Inc raised $8 million from Maxfield Capital that included existing investors C4 Ventures and Seer Capital. The four year old company lends unsecured personal loans to millennials.

Small business lender Streetshares won SEC approval to launch business bonds to the masses. The product will pay a fixed 5 percent interest (regardless of the performance of a particular underlying loan), is ensured by a provision fund, and provides liquidity as investors can access their funds at a 1 percent fee.

Prosper decided to end its loan sale agreement with Citi and might be in talks with Goldman Sachs. This move comes after a lukewarm reception on a batch of Prosper bonds after investors demanded  as much as 5 percent points higher compared to last year.