Congrats to the team at Lending Club and to Google execs for seeing the value of P2P lending.
Here’s the release from the Lending Club site:
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Google Takes Minority Interest in Lending Club
Investment part of a $125 million secondary round
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – May 2, 2013 – Lending Club (https://www.lendingclub.com) today announced that Google has acquired a minority stake in the company. The investment by Google came as part of a secondary transaction whereby new and existing investors acquired shares from existing investors. Buyers include Google and existing investor Foundation Capital.
“Lending Club is using the Internet to reshape the financial system and profoundly transform the way people think of credit and investment,” said Google’s David Lawee. “We are excited to be a part of it.”
As part of this investment David Lawee will take an observer seat on the Lending Club Board alongside existing Board members including Mary Meeker, John Mack and Larry Summers.
“Few companies have such an in-depth understanding of the Internet as Google,” said Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche. “We believe our relationship with Google will be very helpful in better serving our customers. We couldn’t be more excited to have them on board.”
Lending Club continues its significant growth with more than $1.65 billion in loans facilitated since inception including over $350 million in the last quarter. By focusing on high-credit-quality borrowers, the Lending Club platform has generated 22 consecutive quarters of positive returns. The company’s wholly-owned subsidiary LC Advisors, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor, has launched several funds in the last 2 years and now has more than $450 million in assets under management.
