Fundrise plans to offer a new fund that invests in the development of homes for sale in Los Angeles, California; investors in the fund will be investing in a diversified portfolio of real estate properties in development and for sale with the option to buy homes in the portfolio; investors will receive distributions from the fund's operating cash flow which will primarily be generated from the sale of homes in the fund; distributions may also be made from other sources of cash flow including structured equity or debt. Source
Fundrise began its crowdfunded initial public offering (IPO) on February 1; the investment has been oversubscribed and the company has paused the offering due to high demand; it has reported it will increase the available shares to three million from two million; in an updated offering circular the firm says it will offer three million shares at a price of $5.00 which brings the total expected fundraising to $15 million. Source
Fundrise has announced a Regulation A investment offering of Rise Companies Corp. which is the parent company of the investment platform Fundrise, LLC; the campaign is currently in a solicitation phase which its website says has generated interest of over $58 million from more than 4,350 users; the investment offering circular was initially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 29, 2016; some details from the most recent amended offering circular include the following: offering of one million shares of Class B non-voting common stock, offer and sale of the shares is limited to investors who have purchased investments on the Fundrise platform. Source
As of January 2017 the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fully authorized ten peer-to-peer lenders, according to AltFi, while the remainder of the industry operates with interim approvals; AltFi speculates on some of the characteristics of the authorized and interim lenders; of the authorized firms, Folk2Folk is the largest with originations of approximately 100 million British pounds ($120.44 million); the UK's largest platforms including Zopa, RateSetter and Funding Circle still have not been approved; loans from these lenders are primarily unsecured; characteristics identified by AltFi as issues for the FCA include: pre-funding, collective investment, auto-investing and institutional investment. Source
Global Debt Registry (GDR) will partner with TransUnion for data to enhance GDR's eValidation services; the data partnership will help to improve eValidation's verification for investors and issuing creditors also providing more in-depth analytics on borrowers; GDR President Charlie Moore says, "Their data allows our investors to gain more confidence in the underlying assets through verification, validation and enhanced credit risk tools." Source
Nuoyuan Technology is optimistic about financial innovation in China and globally; the firm is growing its business in China and through its subordinate business, Nuoyuan Online Platform, offers a service that connects borrowers with lenders; Nuoyuan Online has now helped to finance over 5 billion RMB and has over 600,000 users; in their featured blog post they discuss the global market for fintech innovation and their expectations for the future. Sponsored Blog Post
California-based Kountable is an invoice and trade financing platform currently offering financing for businesses in Rwanda; firm has secured a $150 million credit line from a private credit asset manager; funding will help the company to expand in the global trade finance market. Source
Goji is marketing a P2P lending bond product, the Goji Diversified P2P Lending Bond, which is targeting annual returns of greater than 5%; the firm is based in London and offers a range of services for the P2P lending industry including tools and resources for investors and financial intermediaries, an investing platform, IFISA account servicing technology for platforms and now a new P2P lending bond; the Bond will invest in a minimum of 200 loans across all options available in the UK P2P lending sector. Source
Goldman Sachs is estimating a 500% return on its initial investment of $550 million in credit data provider TransUnion; the investment began in 2012 when Goldman Sachs bought TransUnion; since then TransUnion has gone public with shares opening at $22.50 on June 25, 2015 and currently trading at $38.23; Goldman Sachs has also earned $50 million from TransUnion's IPO and debt underwriting; additionally, Goldman Sachs is reporting a number of other advantages from the investment including support for its newly launched consumer lending platform Marcus which is a client of TransUnion. Source
Growth Street has appointed Greg Carter to CEO; Carter is a founder of the firm and has been the firm's chief risk officer since its launch; Carter will replace James Sherwin-Smith who has been CEO since the firm launched in 2015; Growth Street is a UK lender focused on SME business lending; it markets returns of up to 6.5% and provides a range of business lending products including working capital loans of up to 500,000 British pounds ($623,763); in 2016 it reported loan originations of approximately 54 million British pounds ($67.37 million). Source