Auxmoney Raised 12M from Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures

As reported earlier German p2p lending service Auxmoney completed a series A round in the end of 2012. Today the company disclosed that Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures participated in that round and invested 12 million US$. Together they hold 21,8% of the Auxmoney ownership.

Both VC have made previous investments in p2p lending companies. Union Square Ventures invested in Lending Club and Funding Circle. Index Ventures invested in Funding Circle.

CEO Raffael Johnen told P2P-Banking.com: “We are happy to have won Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures as investors. Both have comprehensive experience with online marketplaces nad their expertise will help us to accomplish our plans to grow”. Johnen plans to use the raised amount to continue development of the technology. Furthermore he want to increase the staff (currently about 30). Main goal of Aumxoney is the growth of the loan volume.

Auxmoney Changes Business Modell; Raised Series A

Documents available to P2P-Banking.com show that German p2p lending service Auxmoney raised a series A round in the end of 2012 from 2 companies. The new investors now hold 21.8% of the shares, the 3 founders Philip Kamp, Raffael Johnen and Philipp Kriependorf hold 40.4% of the shares and the remainder is held by various seed investors (mainly from Austria and UK). The volume of the Series A round was not disclosed. In fact the round itself was not announced in public.

Yesterday Auxmoney did change its business model. In the past Auxmoney approach was subject to continued criticism (see also), because Auxmoneys largest fee income came from listing fees that every applicant for a loan had to pay. And with 80-90% of applications not funded, many critics felt that this model was unfair to the borrowers.

New fee model

Since yesterday Auxmoney charges borrowers a transaction fee for funded loan applications, but no more listing fees. This is in line with fee structures used by most major p2p lending services. Lenders pay a 1% transaction fee on successful bids.

No more auctions

In the past Auxmoney used a mix of loan listings that closed when they reached 100% funding and loans with reverse dutch auctions. In future all loan listings run for a maximum of 20 days and close immediately when they reach 100% funding. Raffael Johnen, co-founder of Auxmoney told P2P-Banking.com:  ‘Lenders told us, that when they had bidded, they wanted to be sure to have invested in the loan part and disliked when they were outbid in  the course of the auction‘.

New interface

Auxmoney also redid parts of the user interface and the dashboard for lenders. Johnen promised faster and more transparent information from the collection process. Continue reading

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

Student Loan Site Social Finance Receives $77M in Funding

Social Finance arranges p2p student loans from alumni investors to graduate borrowers in the US. Currently students from 78 schools are eligable to apply for a Sofi loan in order to refinance their student loan debt. Social Finance says that it has generated more than 60 million US$ in loan applications and is on track to commit more than 200 million US$ in 2012.

Social Finance was founded only one year ago and now receives a staggering 77 million US$ series B funding from Baseline Ventures, Renren and DCM.

(Source: Techcrunch)

Lending Club Gets $25M More Funding

P2P Lending service Lending Club has raised another 25 million US$ funding.

Union Square Ventures led the Series D round and joins Lending Club as a Board Observer. All existing venture investors participated in the funding round.

“We are thrilled to welcome Union Square Ventures as an equity partner,” said Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche. “While we did not need additional funding, we could not pass up the opportunity to work closely with the USV team and their network of companies. USV will be instrumental in continuing to accelerate Lending Club’s growth and in leveraging our technology platform and network effect to simultaneously reduce the cost of credit to borrowers and enhance investors’ returns.”

The new funding brings Lendingclub’s total funding to 77.7 million US$.

(source: press release)