The Ranger Direct Lending Fund has reported plans for share issuance totaling 200 million British pounds through 2017; the Fund currently has a 40 million British pound issuance planned for December; it also raised 30 million British pounds in July and 23.2 million British pounds in November of 2016; according to a statement from Ranger Direct Lending, "The company believes that debt instruments originated or issued by direct lending platforms are an attractive and growing asset class that have the potential to provide higher returns for investors than other, more widely available, fixed income products."; growth from the asset class and potential returns are factors driving the new issuances. Source
First Trust has filed a Form D with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a pooled fund that will include marketplace lending securities under the name First Trust Marketplace Lending Partners, L.P.; minimum investment in the fund is $50,000; firm offers a range of investment funds including many funds with an income focused investment strategy. Source
LendingRobot has filed a Form D with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicating its plans for a pooled investment fund; the investing platform currently provides investment accounts that allow customers to invest in marketplace loans from direct lenders through the platform; the new fund provides a pooled fund investment option for investors; the minimum investment is $100,000. Source
Orchard published its Weekly Online Lending Snapshot with data through Tuesday of the Thanksgiving holiday week; commentary focuses on increased lending to small businesses and highlights Small Business Saturday which occurred on November 26; the Weekly Snapshot shows publicly traded marketplace lending company returns led by LendingClub with a monthly gain of 22.38% and LendingTree with a monthly gain of 16.09%; UK listed funds all reported losses on a monthly return basis with the VPC Specialty Lending Fund leading losses at -10.38% followed by the P2P Global Investments Fund reporting a monthly loss of -7.12%; the US listed, River North Marketplace Lending Fund has reported a positive monthly gain of 0.83%; in securitizations, SoFi is the latest issuer with the SoFi Professional Loan Program LLC (SOFI-2016-E) priced on November 17. Source
An investigation regarding fraudulent fundraising from Chinese peer-to-peer lender, Ezubao, has been underway since February 2016; regulators have reported all of the fundraising projects on the site were fraudulent and that the firm collected $7.6 billion from approximately 900,000 investors; Chinese regulators have recovered $1.5 billion in assets which include real estate, jewelry, stocks, cars and helicopters bought for company executives of the parent company Yucheng Group. Source
eOriginal has added Ron Suber, Prosper Marketplace president, to its advisory board; the digital transaction document management company has been steadily expanding its business in the marketplace lending market; Ron Suber will help support the company's growth as an advocate for its unique digital documentation products also advising the company on the marketplace lending market overall; eOriginal is currently growing and expanding, also adding Jon Barlow, founder and former CEO of Eaglewood Capital Management, to its advisory board and raising $26.5 million in a recent funding round. Source
SmartFunding has raised S$700,000 in a seed funding round led by Fintech Asia Group; the firm is marketing 20% to 30% annual returns for invoice financing investors; the invoice financing business seeks to capitalize on the Singapore market's small and medium-enterprise businesses which account for half of Singapore's GDP and approximately 70% of the country's jobs. Source
China-based, QuantGroup, has raised $73 million in a Series C funding round led by Sunshine Insurance Group Corporation, Fosun Capital, Guosen Hongsheng Investment Co., Ltd. and other undisclosed investors; QuantGroup is an online financial services platform offering credit products; it evolved from the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator and is led by Zhou Hao with experience at Morgan Stanley, Capital One and Barclays. Source
Online lending platform, Capital Float, received the Fintech Startup of the Year award at the India Fintech Awards 2016, demonstrating its kirana loan app which it says gives instant approval with no paperwork; the award provides Capital Float with INR 500,000 along with many event partner benefits; within the industry the company has also been focusing on the country's demonetization which has been helping business growth for fintech firms. Source
MarketInvoice has reached a 1 billion British pound invoice funding milestone; in the past 14 months it has financed 500 million British pounds of invoices; just recently reaching the 1 billion British pounds funding milestone, it reported invoices funded of 958,029,836 British pounds as of October 31 with a total loan amount of 765,451,443 British pounds; the company has been in business since 2010 with a total of over 20,000 transactions; it currently offers loans of 10,000 British pounds to 3 million British pounds for company invoices. Sources