Lending Club Announces $25 Million Round Led by Union Square Ventures

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Lending Club, (http://www.lendingclub.com), the leading platform for investing in and obtaining personal loans, today announced the closing of a $25 million investment round. Union Square Ventures led the round and joins Lending Club as a Board Observer. All existing venture investors participated in the funding round.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110803/SF46133LOGO)

"We have a long history of helping develop large online networks," said Fred Wilson, managing partner, Union Square Ventures. "We believe Lending Club will surpass the largest US banks in the next decade both in size and performance because it leverages the power of the network to grow faster, get smarter and become increasingly more efficient over time."

Other investments from Union Square Ventures include Twitter, Foursquare and Zynga.

"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."

Lending Club brings together investors and creditworthy borrowers, utilizing technology to reduce the cost and complexity of traditional lending in order to provide borrowers with better rates and investors with better returns. Focusing on prime and super-prime quality borrowers enables Lending Club's investment platform to generate over a 9.5 percent Net Annualized Return, while offering consumers an APR well below traditional alternatives for similar borrowers.^*

Lending Club recently surpassed $325 million in total loan originations and is now issuing over $20 million in prime consumer loans each month.

About Lending Club

Lending Club brings together investors and creditworthy borrowers, utilizing technology and automation to reduce the cost and complexity of traditional lending in order to offer borrowers better rates and investors better returns.  Founded in 2006 and based in San Francisco, CA, Lending Club has been recognized for its results and innovation by the Harvard Business Review and Dow Jones and featured in major publications, television and radio shows. More information is available at: http://www.lendingclub.com.

Additional information about Lending Club is available in the prospectus for Lending Club's notes, which can be obtained on Lending Club's website at https://www.lendingclub.com/info/prospectus.action.

About Union Square Ventures

Union Square Ventures is one of the leading venture capital firms investing in Internet and mobile Internet businesses. Located in New York, Union Square Ventures backs passionate, experienced entrepreneurs who are focused on creating highly scalable services and significant value propositions for their end users. Over the past 7 years, Union Square Ventures has been directly involved in the development of 40 companies and through its principals' prior firms, has participated in the launch of over 120 companies. For more information, visit www.usv.com.

^*Rate depends upon credit score, loan amount, loan term, and credit usage & history. All loans made by WebBank, a Utah-chartered Industrial Bank. Source for average credit card APR for similar borrowers calculated using headline rates on credit cards offered to borrowers with "Excellent Credit" at www.credit.com as of 7/31/11.  

SOURCE Lending Club