Articles by deBanked Staff
Bizfi Woos Restaurants With Lending Products
March 3, 2016The New York State Restaurant Association signed Bizfi to provide business financing for its 2,000 members.
The New York-based financial platform will be the designated funder of equipment financing, invoice financing, lines of credit, medium term financing, short-term financing, franchise financing and long-term loans from more than 45 partners.
“Restaurants have unique funding needs and owners often do not have time to spare in order to complete the long application process at traditional lenders,” said Stephen Sheinbaum, founder of Bizfi.
Bizfi’s lending partners include all the major lenders in the industry including OnDeck, Funding Circle, Kabbage, IMCA Capital, Bluevine, and SmartBiz and the company has funded over $1.4 to over 27,000 small businesses since 2005.
Prosper Hires New CFO Amid Rate Hikes, Downgrade
March 2, 2016Online lender Prosper Marketplace has hired David Kimball as its chief financial officer.
Kimball joins the San-Francisco based lender from USAA where he was a senior financial officer in charge of capital markets, treasury and accounting.
“Marketplace lending is an industry that I have watched with interest for some time, and I’m thrilled to be returning to the west coast to join Prosper Marketplace,” said David Kimball.
The company recently raised interest rates among what it called a “turbulent market environment” by an average of 1.4 points to 14.9 percent. Separately, Moody’s downgraded three bonds backed by Prosper citing concerns over slow repayment and loss projections.
Avant Crosses $3 Billion in Personal Loans
March 2, 2016
The naysayers of automated underwriting will have to be silenced again.
Chicago-based marketplace lender Avant, which uses big data and machine learning to underwrite loans announced that it has beat its online rivals as the first lender to cross $3 billion in personal loans in three years.
The four year old company has 440,000 customers and has issued 480,000 loans so far. It goes after the middle class consumers who take personal loans for an average of $8,000.
“This is a huge accomplishment and speaks to the market demand for affordable and accessible personal loans,” said CEO, Al Goldstein.
Much of its success came from the beefed up presence in the UK, a world leader in P2P lending — where the average loan size is 72 percent higher than the US on a per capita basis. The company hired key executives from MasterCard and HSBC after closing a Series E round from General Atlantic for $325 million last year. With that, it has so far raised $1.7 billion in total.
LoanDepot Adds Performance Data to Orchard Lending Index
February 29, 2016Marketplace lender loanDepot tied up with analytics firm Orchard to integrate its data into its U.S. Consumer Marketplace Lending Index which measures the overall performance of U.S. consumer marketplace loans.
The index allows investors to calculate returns based on charge-off and industry growth rates and is distributed through the Bloomberg Professional Service. In May last year, California-based loanDepot entered the marketplace lending market, moving beyond mortgages and launching its first unsecured personal loan product. Through its lending platform, it offers personal loans, purchase and refinance, and home equity loan products.
“As online lending continues to grow in size and importance, access to transparent and unbiased, benchmarked data will become more important to investors as they evaluate opportunities,” said Brian Biglin, chief risk officer at loanDepot. “We’re excited to showcase our portfolio on the Orchard platform as an attractive option to investors interested in specific loan types, borrower profiles and risk and return potential.”
Former Deutsche Bank Exec Anshu Jain Joins SoFi Board
February 29, 2016SoFi has made news again — and this time garnering some serious industry cred.
After its controversial SuperBowl ad and the proposed dating app, the student loan lender has hired former head of Deutsche Bank, Anshu Jain as a board member.
Anshu Jain, who resigned from the German bank as its co-chief exeutive officer will join SoFi as an adviser initially and help the company secure long-term capital. In December last year, the company hired Barbara Lambotte, a twelve year veteran of Moody’s Investors Service, to the capital markets team. These high-profile hires mark a significant step in bringing attention to the fast-growing online lending market.
San Francisco-based SoFi, valued at $4 billion, funded over $6 billion in loans across various products including mortgages, personal loans and student loan refinancing and this year launched the sale of a $551 million securitization offering.
Venture Capital Firm 500 Startups Launches $25M Fintech Fund
February 25, 2016Early stage venture fund, 500 Startups announced a $25 million fintech fund which will invest in nearly 100 startups focused on lending, investment advisory, personal finance management, blockchain, money movement, and insurance.
The accelerator’s other fintech investments include credit management platform, CreditKarma, online bank, Simple, payments startup Flywire and financial comparison site iMoney.
Through a fintech-focused accelerator and a partner program, 500 Startups will coach these companies on regulation, customer relations, marketing and distribution. Spearheaded by Sheel Mahnot, a partner at the firm with fintech expertise, the fund will accelerate 20+ companies per year in the Silicon Valley.
The Reason Behind Lendio’s 1175% Growth
February 25, 2016
Lendio, the small business loans marketplace closed 2015 with $128 million in financing for 5100 businesses. That number swiftly becomes impressive compared to the 400 businesses funded with $12.4 million the previous year.
Lendio CEO Brock Blake attributes this 1175 percent growth to the partnerships the company forged, the most noteworthy one with Staples where Lendio finances the small businesses that Staples often interacts with. “We had a great year with our partnership,” he said. “Staples has been a fantastic partner — they have the merchants and we have the finance.”
The Salt Lake City-based company prides itself on its partnership strategy. In 2014, the company struck a deal with UPS to offer their marketplace for free to The UPS Store business customers.
Blake is also excited about expanding the marketing channels and growing the firm’s online marketing strategy.
Lendio’s average loan size is $25,000 and their clients have typically been in business for 26 months in industries like construction, retail, restaurants and real estate.
P2P Insurance Startup Lemonade Hires Behavioral Economist, Dan Ariely
February 24, 2016
“If you tried to create a system to bring out the worst in humans, it would look a lot like today’s insurance. @Lemonade_Inc changes that!”
That was a tweet by Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University known for his bestseller ‘Predictably Irrational.’ Ariely, a leading behavioral economist is the latest hire at Lemonade Inc, a P2P insurance personal insurance.
Ariely will serve as the startup’s chief behavioral officer where he will design systems using his research to mitigate risks and ensure to align the interests of both the insurers and the insured.
“Dishonesty is influenced a lot by our ability to justify it. If we are dealing with a party that we think is immoral itself than we [are immoral] and justify it. We think that everybody else cheats… it feels like a victimless crime,” TechCrunch quoted him saying.
Ariely’s research has found that people tend to be more honest while filling out forms if they sign at the top of the page. Lemonade’s approach to disrupting the insurance industry will definitely have such applications.
The startup secured a $13 million funding round from Sequoia Capital and Israeli investor Aleph in December last year and has since made many significant hires from leading insurance firms like AIG and has lined up the likes of Berkshire Hathaway’s National Indemnity and Lloyd’s of London as reinsurers.
