Catching Up With Marketplace Lending – A Timeline

2/17

• Prospa, an online small business lender based in Australia, was valued at $235M (AUD) in a $25M capital raise
• Square announced funding $248 million worth of business loans in Q4 2016

2/21 A Massachusetts state court vacated a merchant cash advance COJ

2/24 SoFi raised $500M in a financing round led by Silver Lake Partners that reportedly gave SoFi a $4.3B valuation

2/27 Prosper Marketplace closed a loan purchase agreement with a consortium of lenders for up to $5 billion of loans that has a provision that also enables the lenders to buy up to 35% of the company

2/28 BlueVine secured a warehouse line of up to $75M from Fortress

3/1 Lendio launched a new franchise program, allowing local offices around the country to become Lendio franchisees

3/3 Citing Madden v Midland, Colorado regulator brought a federal lawsuit against Marlette Funding for violating the state’s usury cap

3/5 Two trade associations, the Innovative Lending Platform Association (ILPA) and the Coalition for Responsible Business Finance (CRBF), joined forces. The merged company will continue to be known as ILPA

3/6 Upstart raised $32.5M

3/7

• It’s reported that former CAN Capital CFO Aman Verjee is now the COO of 500 Startups
• Kabbage priced a $525M securitization. It was oversubscribed

3/9 Citing Madden v Midland, Colorado regulator brought a federal lawsuit against Avant for violating the state’s usury cap

3/13

• Melvin Chasen, the founder of Rewards Network (originally Transmedia Network, Inc.) passed away. He was 88.
• The New York State Assembly rejected the Governor’s proposal to grant the Department of Financial Services (DFS) regulatory authority over any online lender doing business in the state

3/15

• The New York State Senate also rejected the proposal to further regulate lending
• The OCC published a manual on how it will evaluate charter applications from fintech companies
• The New York DFS published a statement rejecting the OCC’s plans
• The WSJ reported that Marlette Funding was cutting nearly 1/5th of its workforce

3/16 WebBank announced that it had a net income of $29.2M for 2016 and that it had a market valuation of $319.4M

3/20 Prosper Marketplace announced that it had originated $2.2B in loans in 2016, down from $3.7B in 2015, and had a net loss of $119M.

3/21 It’s reported that Kabbage will set up its European headquarters in Ireland

3/22 OnDeck expanded its credit facility with Deutsche Bank by $52M to a total of up to $214M

3/27 IOU Financial wins Gold Stevie Award for Best Use of Technology in Customer Service

3/30 In Advance Capital announced that they had secured access to an additional $50M

4/5

• Budget passes in New York. Proposed lending legislation was not included in it.
• Kabbage surpasses $3 billion funded to small businesses

See previous timelines:
12/16/16 – 2/16/17
9/27/16 – 12/16/16