German p2p lending Smava had a high net loss for the year 2011. Documents available to P2P-Banking.com show that Smava incurred a net loss of 2.77 million Euro (approx. 3.68 million US$) in 2011; up from 1.75 million EUR in 2010. Overall loss carried forward up to the end of 2011 was 7.7 million EUR (approx 10.2 million US$). Smava did raise new capital in 2011. They had a cash reserve of 1.98 million EUR in the end of 2011. The high burn rate might have contributed to Smavas decision to change the business model in early 2012 moving away from p2p lending.
No financial figures were available to P2P-Banking.com for later periods.
Services
P2P Lending Panel at Le Web
Video panel on p2p lending at Le Web with Samir Desai, CEO of Funding Circle, Renauld Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club and Raffael Johnen, CEO of Auxmoney.
Decline of P2P Lending Volume at Smava Continues
At German Smava.de the volume of newly originated p2p loans continues to fall and reached a record low of approx. 700K Euro in January. That’s only about one-third of the volume Smava funded on its peak-time in mid-2010. Smava changed its business model in spring 2012, since then focusing on brokering bank loans and the aim to rely on the commissions paid by the banks as main source of revenue rather than the p2p lending transaction fees. There are no public figures available on the volume of bank loans brokered by Smava. I do wonder if they will reach break even by pursuing that model as competition in that market is fierce.
Prosper Raises $20M from Sequoia; Appoints New CEO
Prosper has raised 20 million US$ from Sequoia Capital. Prosper also announced it has appointed Stephan Vermut as Chief Executive Officer and member of the board of directors. Prospers management team is undergoing change after several persons left in December (e.g. David Silverman, Larry Cheng, Jeffrey Jacobs). The SEC recently approved Prospers new ProsperFunding LLC, a legal structure set up to offer bankruptcy protection for investors in the event of an bankruptcy of Prosper Marketplace Inc.
(Sources: press release & other)
Rothschild Invests into Zopa
Rothschild, through its RIT Capital Ltd investment trust, invested into p2p lending service Zopa. Their VC fund Augmentum Capital has led a “multi-million pound” round which for Zopa is the series D round. Forward Venture Partners as well as previous backers Bessemer Venture Partners and Wellington Partners participated in the investment. Details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Sources: Financial Times, Techcrunch
The Lending Club Story
‘The Lending Club Story‘ is the new Kindle ebook written by Peter Renton. It covers the interesting development of Lending Club from a p2p lending startup to a company that has issued 1 billion US$ p2p loans. The process is explained for new lenders and borrowers and the story of selected borrowers and lenders is shared.
Best of all: You can download it free for the next four days at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Peter Renton writes the very informative blog LendAcademy where he shares advice for Prosper and Lending Club lenders.