The ever growing San Francisco based Lending Club facilitated its first loan in May 2007. Since then the platform has more than doubled its annual loan volume year-on-year. Lending Club has issued an astounding $1billion of loans through Q2 alone. The UK peer-to-peer lenders, by comparison, reached a combined total of $559 million between them over that same timeframe – according to the Liberum AltFi Volume Index. In the first quarter loans issued by Lending Club totaled approximately $791 million.
Commenting on the company’s recent billion dollar success, CEO Renaud Laplanche stated:
"This milestone brings us another step closer to our goal of transforming the banking system, one billion at a time […] we believe we can make the system more cost-efficient, more transparent and more customer friendly, and are committed to offering cost efficient products that help people achieve their financial goals.”
Lending Club is expected to hold a landmark IPO later this year. The platform is targeting a valuation of around $5 billion and is looking to raise $500 million from the listing. The platform’s valuation stood at just $3.76 billion following an equity round in April earlier this year. If the IPO falls out of 2014 all together – it’s entirely possible, probable even, that the world’s leading P2P platform will have another billion in lending under its belt before it lists.
Laplanche declined to comment on the company’s progress towards the IPO – stating only that the IPO is not necessary to raise money, joining Wall Street is "more about raising awareness and also giving an opportunity for the customers to be owners of the company and have a stake in the company.”
