Posted by Lending Club :: August 17, 2007 @ 3:05 pm

Lending Club Video Awards attract over 100,000 viewers on YouTube in contest to find the best user-generated video ads for its new person-to-person lending service. Winners include Chris Barrett, professional filmmaker, and Share Ross, former bassist for platinum-selling recording artists, Vixen.

SUNNYVALE, CA – August 17, 2007 - Lending Club, the rapidly growing person-to-person lending service, today announced the winners of its Lending Club Video Awards contest. The contest took place simultaneously on Facebook and YouTube from July 18 through August 10, 2007. Users were invited to create and submit Lending Club video ads for a cash prize. The submissions were viewed more than 100,000 times in just five weeks, and due to the overwhelming popularity, Lending Club has decided to raise the cash prize to $8,000 (from $5,000) to be shared among four winners.

"Lending Club represents a new way for people to lend and borrow money among each other, so we decided that the best way to promote our P2P lending service was to challenge our users to create videos to explain our benefits," said Renaud Laplanche, CEO and founder of Lending Club.

"However, nothing could have prepared us for the incredible popularity of our video contest and the quality of our top submissions. So, our team got together and agreed to increase our prize amount to reward four directors instead of just one."

The winners of the Lending Club Video Awards are:

Best Video Award ($3,000 Cash Prize): Chris Barrett (17,825 views). Chris Barrett is a professional filmmaker and co-founder of Powerhouse Pictures Entertainment, LLC along with actor Efren Ramirez. He can also be seen in the award winning documentaries "The Corporation" and "Maxed Out". His professionally filmed short takes a humorous look at one of the many real life situations in which regular people can benefit from using Lending Club.

YouTube® Viewers Award ($3,000 Cash Prize): Steve Dinelli (19,011 views). Eighteen-year-old Steve Dinelli's stop-motion video demonstrates Steve's extraordinarily promising talent, while giving examples of what Lending Club loans can be used for. Steve's video was acclaimed by YouTube's viewers and has surpassed the 20,000-view mark.

Storyboard Award ($1,500 Cash Prize): Jonathan Reed (6,480 views). Jonathan Reed entered the contest in its last week with an astonishing video that showcases Lending Club's social lending features and Facebook® presence in a well animated and engaging storyboard. Congratulations, Jonathan!

Jury Prize ($500 Cash Prize): Share Ross (1,018 views). Share Ross is the former bassist for the platinum-selling EMI recording artists Vixen and guitarist and singer for Bubble. Share calls P2P lending a "wonderful form of anarchy". Her video gives a personal perspective on the advantages of borrowing on Lending Club.