as nyse lc industry personal finance software founded 2006 headquarters stevenson place san francisco california 1 key people scott sanborn ceo & president ; carrie dolan cfo ; scott sanborn coo ; john j. mack director 2 mary meeker 3 soul htite 4 products peer to peer lending revenue 213 million usd fiscal year ended december 31 2014 5 number of employees 1000 6 website lendingclub.com lending club is a us peer to peer lending company headquartered in san francisco california . it was the first peer to peer lender to register its offerings as securities with the securities and exchange commission sec and to offer loan trading on a secondary market . lending club operates an online lending platform that enables borrowers to obtain a loan and investors to purchase notes backed by payments made on loans . lending club is the world s largest peer to peer lending platform . 7 the company claims that 15.98 billion in loans had been originated through its platform up to 31 december 2015 . 8 lending club enables borrowers to create unsecured personal loans between 1 000 and 40 000 . the standard loan period is three years . investors can search and browse the loan listings on lending club website and select loans that they want to invest in based on the information supplied about the borrower amount of loan loan grade and loan purpose . investors make money from interest . lending club makes money by charging borrowers an origination fee and investors a service fee . the company raised 1 billion in what became the largest technology ipo of 2014 in the united states . though viewed as a pioneer in the fintech industry and one of the largest such firms lending club experienced problems in early 2016 with difficulties in attracting investors a scandal over some of the firm s loans and concerns by the board over ceo renaud laplanche s disclosures leading to a large drop in its share price and laplanche s resignation . contents 1 history 1.1 pre ipo growth 1.2 initial public offering ipo 1.3 car loans and mortgages 1.4 2016 2 business model 2.1 overview 2.2 loan ownership 2.3 credit risk 2.4 loan performance statistics 3 board of directors 4 recognition 5 see also 6 references 7 further reading 8 external links history edit lending club was initially launched on facebook as one of facebook s first applications . 9 10 after receiving 10.26 million in a series a funding round in august 2007 from venture capital investors norwest venture partners and canaan partners lending club was developed into a full scale peer to peer lending company . 9 11 on april 8 2008 lending club temporarily suspended new lender registration canceled its affiliate program and entered a quiet period while it awaited approval to issue promissory notes to lenders . 12 on june 20 2008 lending club filed an s 1 statement 13 with the u.s. securities and exchange commission sec seeking the registration of 600 million in member payment dependent notes to be issued on its web site . 14 on august 1 2008 lending club filed an amendment to its form s 1 15 outlining new interest rate formulas as well as more details on a resale trading system . 16 on october 14 2008 lending club announced its completion of the sec registration process posted the filed prospectus on its website and resumed new lender registration . notes issued on or after october 14 2008 represent lending club securities rather than direct obligations of the ultimate borrower and are tradable can be bought and sold on the foliofn trading platform . 17 in march 2009 lending club raised 12 million in a series b funding round led by morgenthaler ventures . 18 pre ipo growth edit in april 2010 the company raised 24.5 million in a series c funding led by foundation capital and joined by existing investors including morgenthaler ventures norwest venture partners and canaan partners . 19 in august 2011 lending club raised an additional 25 million in venture capital from union square ventures and thomvest owned by the thomson family of thomson reuters . 1 20 this led to lending club earning a 275 million post money valuation and an increase of 80 million in valuation from the preceding year . 21 thomson reuters founder peter j. thomson also invested an unspecified amount of his personal fortune into lending club . 22 in fall 2011 lending club s headquarters moved to downtown san francisco ; its earlier offices were located in sunnyvale and redwood city . 1 co founder soul htite moved to china to start dianrong.com a peer to peer lending company based in shanghai . 23 in 2012 the company employed about 80 people with renaud laplanche continuing as the company ceo and chairman of the board of directors . 1 24 25 the company averaged about 1.5 million in loan originations daily with a total of 600 million since its founding . 26 in april 2012 lending club s sec registration from 2008 was renewed for 1 billion usd in member payment dependent notes and became effective on april 10 2012 . 27 in june 2012 the company received 15 million in new funding from kleiner perkins caufield & byers and 2.5 million of personal investments from john j. mack . kleiner perkins partner mary meeker joined mack on lending club s board of directors . 3 this led to a 570 million valuation of the company . 28 in november 2012 lending club surpassed 1 billion in loans issued since inception and announced they were now cash flow positive . 29 in may 2013 google purchased a stake in lending club . 28 lending club also began partnering with smaller banks in order to help streamline their small loans operations . in june 2013 the company partnered with titan bank in texas and congressional bank in maryland in order to help them facilitate loans that would have been otherwise unprofitable for them . 30 31 initial public offering ipo edit in march 2014 lending club began providing loans to small businesses . 32 in april 2014 lending club acquired springstone financial . 33 in may 2014 lending club formed a partnership with union bank . 34 on august 27 2014 lending club filed for an ipo with the sec 35 the offering taking place in december 2014 . 36 on december 10 2014 the company raised almost 900 million in the largest u.s. tech ipo of 2014 . the stock ended the first trading day up 56 % valuing the company at 8.5 bn . 37 stevenson place san francisco the location of lending club headquarters car loans and mortgages edit laplanche told forbes in april 2015 that lending club would expand into car loans and mortgages . 38 lending club also announced a partnership with google to extend credit to smaller companies that use google s business services . 39 the company signed partnerships with google alibaba.com bancalliance and homeadvisor including vetting community bank lenders for bancalliance a group of 200 banks in order to send people on its platform to various community finance institutions . 40 that year lending club partnered with opportunity fund announced by former president bill clinton at the clinton global initiative . the partnership intended to provide 10 million to small businesses in areas of california that are underserved by lenders . 41 lending club and other small business lenders partnered with sam s club to deliver its business lending center product . 42 in august 2015 the company created lending club open integration lcoi . 43 in october the company launched a multi draw line of credit product for small businesses . 44 2016 edit like other peer to peer lenders lending club experienced increasing difficulty attracting investors during early 2016 . this led the firm to increase the interest rate it charges borrowers on three occasions during the first months of the year . 45 the increase in interest rates and concerns over the impact of the slowing united states economy caused a large drop in lending club s share price . 46 in april 2016 a lending club employee reported to laplanche that the dates on approximately us 3 million in the firm s loans appeared to have been altered . 45 lending club s internal auditor engaged an outside firm to investigate the report . 47 this investigation found additional problems with loans including that us 22 million in loans which had been sold to the jefferies investment bank did not in fact meet the bank s investment criteria . lending club bought these loans back from the bank and resold them . 45 48 the new york times reported that the investigation found that laplanche had not disclosed to the board that he owned part of an investment fund which lending club was considering purchasing . 45 the wall street journal also stated that laplanche was found to have not fully disclosed what he knew about the problematic loans . 48 on 6 may lending club s board made it clear to laplanche that he no longer had their confidence leading to his resignation on 9 may . 45 the wall street journal reported that laplanche had been fired by the board . three of the firm s other managers had also been fired or had resigned by that time as a result of the problematic loans . 48 lending club s stock price fell by a further 34 percent after laplanche s departure was announced . 45 this placed the stock price at 70 percent of the price at the time of the firm s initial public offering . 47 as a result of the incident the securities and exchange commission was reported to be investigating lending club s disclosures to investors . 48 from may 2015 until may 2016 the share price of lending club had decreased by over 60 % . since laplanche s announced exit the share price halved again . 49 business model edit overview edit lending club enables borrowers to create loan listings on its website by supplying details about themselves and the loans that they would like to request . all loans are unsecured personal loans and can be between 1 000 35 000 . on the basis of the borrower s credit score credit history desired loan amount and the borrower s debt to income ratio lending club determines whether the borrower is credit worthy and assigns to its approved loans a credit grade that determines payable interest rate and fees . the standard loan period is three years ; a five year period is available at a higher interest rate and additional fees . the loans can be repaid at any time without penalty . only investors in 39 us states are eligible to purchase notes on the lending club platform . 50 however eligibility differs when purchasing notes on the secondary market foliofn . borrowers from all but 2 us states are eligible to apply for a loan . 50 investors can search and browse the loan listings on lending club website and select loans that they want to invest in based on the information supplied about the borrower amount of loan loan grade and loan purpose . the loans can only be chosen at the interest rates assigned by lending club but investors can decide how much to fund each borrower with the minimum investment of 25 per note . 51 investors make money from interest . rates vary from 6.03 % to 26.06 % depending on the credit grade assigned to the loan . 52 lending club makes money by charging borrowers an origination fee and investors a service fee . the size of the origination fee depends on the credit grade and ranges to be 1.1 % 5.0 % of the loan amount . the size of