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As reported earlier yesterday afternoon, we are thrilled to announce that Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners invested in the Company as part of a total $10.26MM investment round. Jeff Crowe from NVP and Dan Ciporin from Canaan Partners are joining the Company’s board of directors.

We launched the company as part of the Facebook F8 platform on May 24 and since then have issued $750,000 in loans among Facebook users. Launching on Facebook made sense: we believe that person-to-person lending will grow faster in an environment where people feel connected to each other, and Facebook offers the perfect environment for this with friends, groups and networks. Facebook Lenders can build a “portfolio” of loans based not only on credit profiles but also based on their connections to the borrowers (attended the same school, worked for the same company, etc.).

Facebook now has over 6 million active user groups which are prime targets for financial services. However, Facebook users are younger than the average online population, and our strict screening criteria (640 minimum credit score, less than 20% DTI) led us to decline about 75% of all applications, as younger borrowers tend to have a lower FICO score. We are coming up with new tools to help the “declined” borrowers understand the importance of good credit and take specific actions to improve their credit score.

We will be using the funds to expand beyond our current Facebook application. Stay tuned for interviews with Jeff Crowe and Dan Ciporin on this blog later this morning.

18 competitors, 4 winners, $8,000 in prizes, 100,000+ views

We have just announced on Facebook® the names of the 4 winners in the first Lending Club Video Contest. The Contest took place simultaneously on Facebook® and YouTube® from July 18th through August 10th and the Lending Club videos have been watched a combined 100,000 times on YouTube® in this past 5 weeks.

Our original plan was to give away a single $5,000-prize to the most-watched video. However, after reaching out to the top competitors, we have all agreed to split the main prize, create additional prizes and incorporate other criteria than just YouTube® views including overall quality of original content, clarity of the message, and entertainment value of the video.

And the winners are…(drum roll):

$3,000 Best Video Award - Chris Barrett

Chris Barrett: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G43bLni8Or4 (17,825 views). Chris Barrett is a professional filmmaker and co-founder of Powerhouse Pictures Entertainment, LLC along with actor Efren Ramirez. Chris is currently directing the documentary "After School" studying the phenomenon of illicit teacher-student relationships. He can also be seen in the award winning documentaries "The Corporation" and "Maxed Out," both currently on DVD. Read Chris’ interview by Tom Tolman.

$3,000 YouTube® Viewers Award - Steve Dinelli

Steve Dinelli: http://youtube.com/watch?v=S6RtyX47r_M (19,011 views). Eighteen-year-old Steve Dinelli’s « stop motion » video shows Steve’s talent as well as his ability to convey the right messages about Lending Club. Steve’s video was acclaimed by YouTube’s viewers and has passed the 20,000-view mark. Read Steve’s interview by Tom Tolman.

$1,500 Storyboard Award - Jonthan Reed

Jonathan Reed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSn9nlZC8kM (6,480 views). Jonathan Reed entered the contest in its last week, with an astonishing video that blends Lending Club’s branding and Facebook® presence with a well thought-through and very convincing storyboard. Congratulations Jonathan!

$500 Jury Prize - Share Ross

Share Ross: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOyl4Vh-ZhE (1,018 views). Share feels p2p lending is a wonderful form of anarchy and her video is compelling in its direct exchange of information. Share is the former bassist for the platinum-selling EMI recording artists Vixen and guitarist and singer for Bubble. Read Share’s interview by Tom Tolman.

We are delighted at the outcome of this first contest, have gathered great videos that we will be posting on our Web site to explain the benefits of person-to-person lending, and have learned a lot more about the YouTube ecosystem and the best ways to reach out to the filmmaker community.

By watching videos made by people not previously familiar with p2p lending, we also understood better how our company is being perceived, and how we can best benefit from, or when inaccurate, positively influence, that perception.

A big “thank you” to all 18 participants; we certainly hope to see you around soon for our next video contest!

Lending Club Members Speak Out Series

We have been receiving a fair number of comments from lenders and borrowers since June 6. This weekend we would like to share a few comments we received from borrowers. Their feedback tends to focus on two aspects of the Lending Club experience: ease of use and low rates.

“My sole purpose for borrowing the money was to consolidate my credit debt. I couldn't have asked for a better partner than Lending Club. You have created something unique and I expect you have started something of a revolution. Thank you for being there, and best regards in the years ahead. You're going to be helping a lot of people!”
-- Tim from New York, NY

“It was a great experience! I was able to get the money I needed in just about a week. I loved that I didn't have to deal with any banks and that my money was directly deposited. It's really cool to be able to lend/be lent to from people in the same social network as me. The interest rate on Lending Club was much better than the interest rates I was paying on my credit cards.”
-- Cody from Indianapolis, IN

“I never would've imagined getting a loan from a bank due to all the hassles associated with banks. Lending Club made it easy. Compared to other lending sites and banks, I will end up saving at least $500 with Lending Club's interest rates. That makes me one happy member! I have used my loan to completely consolidate my debt.”
-- Eric from Duluth, GA

“The loan request process was extremely simple and easy. My Lending Club rate was at least 4% lower than the lowest offer I received from a bank and at least 5% lower than I was paying toward credit cards.”
-- Marc from Cheyenne, WY

These testimonials and much more will soon be available on our secure site at https://secure.lendingclub.com. When asked, “What would you improve on our current web site?” borrowers generally responded they would like to be alerted more frequently as their loans get funded, and would also appreciate more options to manage their loans. We are already hard at work improving these and other aspects of the user experience.

We will soon be publishing lenders’ comments in future installments of this “Speak Out” series. If you are a lender or a borrower on Lending Club, we’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment on this blog or write directly to feedback@lendingclub.com!

We are about half-way through the first person-to-person lending YouTube Video Contest announced by Centernetwork, Prosperlendingreview and on this blog on July 19. The contest will be running for another 8 days until August 10.

The goal of this contest is to invite Lending Club users (and just about everyone) to think of entertaining or educational ways to convey the benefits of p2p lending and to help spread the word about those benefits. With more than 12,000 views, the contest has already reached its objective!

For a reason that we cannot fully explain, we are getting a lot of animal-related videos, including cats, raccoons, lions, alligators and buffalos! As an example, you can see lions (banks) and alligators (credit card companies) attacking a buffalo (borrower) who gets rescued by other buffalos (lending club members) in this video posted yesterday by the latest entrant.

The winning contender so far is Steve Dinelli, with more than 6,000 views on YouTube with this excellent Lending Club Contest video.

Videos can get several thousand views in just a few hours on YouTube, so there is still time to enter the contest -- all bets are off until the very last day. Remember, there is a $5,000 cash prize going to the entrant with the most views on YouTube. You can enter by posting your video in this Facebook group.

More animals, anyone?

On Thursday July 26, the Facebook community passed the mark of half a million dollars lent and borrowed! This milestone was passed 7 weeks after we announced the first loan on June 6, which is certainly faster than we anticipated.

We continue to be impressed with the rapid adoption. The Facebook F8 launch has helped spread the word about our company. The community members have generated a tremendous amount of feedback to help improve our product. These improvements are preparing us well for our expansion beyond Facebook.

To date, there has not been any default or late payments, though it is still very early. The close ratio on the site went up to 84%: this statistic means that more than 4 out of every 5 loans obtain funding. A borrower always has the ability to relist a loan if the individual didn’t receive funding the first time.

Lending Club was recently reported by Netbanker as the top “Money” application on Facebook.

The average interest rate continued to go up to 10.71% partially due to larger loans, which usually carry higher interest rates. For more details on interest rates calculations, please visit https://secure.lendingclub.com/info/how-we-set-interest-rates.action. The average loan size went up from $4,700 to $5,250 in the last 4 weeks.

All this information and more will soon be available directly from the secure site https://secure.lendingclub.com.

Renaud from Lending Club

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