CommunityLend blog

Big congratulations to Prosper for their success in raising another $17.2 million from a couple of new investors as well as existing.

Social Lending Marketplace Prosper Raises $17.2M From Eric Schmidt, DFJ, Others

Congratulations to our friends at LendingClub on crossing another milestone.

Lending Club Passes the Quarter-Billion Dollar Mark in Personal Loan Originations | yahoo

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., May 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ – Lending Club (http://www.lendingclub.com), the leading platform for investing in and obtaining personal loans, announced that it has passed $250 million in total loan originations. The platform continues to break monthly loan origination records with 1,556 loans totaling $17.5 million originated through LendingClub.com for April 2011(i).  Lending Club has also won the Webby Award for the best Banking/Bill Paying site, beating out big name institutions like US Bank and JPMorgan Chase.

We are pleased to announce that CommunityLend Holdings Inc. (CLH) has closed a $1.5M private placement from several individual angel investors and an institutional investment fund. Wildlaw Capital Markets Inc., an investment bank, acted as an agent for the round. The proceeds of this private placement will go to scaling up our loan origination, loan adjudication, and loan servicing operations.

This investment comes on the heels of a successful year since our launch as Canada’s 1st (and only) online consumer loan marketplace by CommunityLend Inc. Monthly loan volume has more than doubled each of the last 3 months and we are projecting this pace of growth to continue throughout 2011.

In recent months, CLH has attracted several major partners which are contributing to our exponential growth in loan volume. CLH has signed several strategic channel partnerships recently, including one with Canada’s $6B used car marketplace AutoTrader.ca, announced in December. We have also partnered with over 30 home renovation companies through our subsidiary FinanceIt.ca to provide sales financing to that $30B industry. In the few months since launch, we have aligned FinanceIt.ca with HomeStars and StrengthFinance to serve more home improvement companies.

On the lender capital side, CommunityLend has recently welcomed a new institutional lender into a multi-million dollar pilot and continues to support our individual approved accredited investors.

Thanks to our investors, partners, lenders, and borrowers as we continue our mission to “change the rules of lending” for Canadians.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Short Month, Big Goals

It was a year ago this month, that CommunityLend formally launched Canada’s first and only online loan marketplace . It has been a great first year. As we look towards our goals and plans for this coming year it is easy to state that we are really just getting started. We have a number of new products that we are currently working on and a number of exciting partnerships in the coming months, so stay tuned.

In this month’s newsletter, we’re pleased to share our most recent market metrics, a new partnership announcement and some great press we received last month.

Online Loan Marketplace Stats

• Loan Demand increased significantly last month to $10.96 Million.
• Loan Requests Accepted and available for investment increased to $1.33 Million.
• Our Cumulative Average Loan Size for Accepted Loans moved down slightly to $9,370.
• Our Cumulative Average Offered Interest Rate moved up slightly to 14.32%.
• Our excellent delinquency track record continues at 0.00% on all loans originated to date.

Exclusive Financing Sponsor of HomeStars Best of 2010

This month we announced that we are sponsoring the HomeStars Best of 2010 Awards Shows!

This is the first collaboration in an expanding partnership with HomeStars to promote FinanceIt.ca, our new service that allows home renovation companies to increase sales by offering financing.

Every year, HomeStars, the popular user review site, celebrates the best home renovation companies across Canada. Companies make the Best Of List based on the ratings and reviews from the homeowners that hired them in that year.

Many of us on the CommunityLend staff have personally used HomeStars for years. It is with delight that we can support the Canadian home renovation industry in this way, and to introduce these outstanding companies to FinanceIt.ca.

CommunityLend in the news

Michael interviewed on BNN

On January 21st, CommunityLend CEO, Michael Garrity, was honoured to be asked onto BNN’s Alternative Investing show to speak about Peer-to-peer lending in general and CommunityLend, specifically. Here is the video of Michael being interviewed by Andrew Bell, and David Kauffman.

Michael interviewed on CBC’s Lang & O’Leary

Also in January, we were grateful to be asked to appear on the Lang & O’Leary Exchange on CBC TV to explain CommunityLend. CommunityLend CEO, Michael Garrity appears at 48:45 in this clip.

CommunityLend featured in Business in Vancouver in January 2011

We were fortunate enough to have this excellent article on us by Richard Chu in “Business in Vancouver” in January. The site requires registration, so here is the first paragraph, and a pdf of the article.

“A Toronto-based peer-to-peer lending company is gaining traction in B.C. after spending most of last year obtaining financial and securities regulator approval to operate in the province.”

Past announcements

• CommunityLend Provides Auto Financing through AutoTrader.ca
• News 1130 in Vancouver covers launch of FinanceIt.ca
• Michael Garrity included in TechVibes’ Digital Media People to Watch in 2011
• CommunityLend included in TNW’s 10 Canadian Startups You Should Know About.
• Casper Wong joins CommunityLend
• Paul Sehr joins CommunityLend

In This Update

• Short Month, Big Goals
• Online Loan Marketplace Stats
• Exclusive Financing Sponsor of HomeStars Best of 2010
• CommunityLend in the news
• Past announcements

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About Us

CommunityLend Inc. is a Canadian financial services company that runs the CommunityLend.com online loan marketplace.

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Questions about borrowing or lending?

Contact our team anytime atinfo@communitylend.com
or call us toll free: 1-888-536-3025 (9:00am – 5:00pm EST)

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Follow Us on Twitter

For more news, as it happens, we are@CommunityLend on Twitter.

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CommunityLend and the CommunityLend logo are registered trademarks of CommunityLend Inc.
317 Adelaide St. W. #900, Toronto, ON, Canada. Toll Free: 1-888-536-3025

Homestars are holding their Best Of 2010 Awards and last night was the Toronto event at the Donaldo Club.  We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be sponsors at the various locations including the Toronto event, and here is our CEO Michael Garrity making a brief introduction to the attendees.

It was a terrific high energy event with the best of the best there, and CommunityLend was proud to be there.

We were fortunate enough to have this excellent article on us by Richard Chu in “Business in Vancouver” in January.  The site requires registration, so here is the first paragraph, and a pdf of the article.

A Toronto-based peer-to-peer lending company is gaining traction in B.C. after spending most of last year obtaining financial and securities regulator approval to operate in the province.

Communitylend Inc. is an Internet-based lending company set up to provide loans from private investors to qualified borrowers who sign up as members of the website. The company aims to provide more affordable unsecured loans to borrowers than what banks offer while also giving private investors access to the personal lending market.

pdf of the article

Technorati Tags: CommunityLend,Business in Vancouver

Hosted at BMO in First Canadian Place.

Financeit.ca is proud to announce an exciting iPad 3g giveaway contest with HomeStars starting in April.

The contest details are:

1. Must be approved as a Financeit.ca Partner before March 31st
2. Once approved, you will be automatically entered into a monthly draw for an iPad 3G with 4 chances to win starting from April to July
3. You will receive 1 entry per approved loan application
4. You will receive 1 entry for each new HomeStars review during this time
5. Early bird prize of an iphone if approved before Feb 28th

Here is the video of Michael being interviewed by Andrew Bell, and David Kauffman.

http://watch.bnn.ca/clip405181#clip405181