On June 20th in New York City the first ever p2p and online lending conference will be held. Called LendIt, as most of you know I am one of the organizers of this groundbreaking event. The other organizer is Dara Albright, a veterean conference producer and founder of Nowstreet Media.
We are very pleased to have the support of several sponsors who have taken the plunge with us in our first event. We would like to thank Diamond Sponsors Lending Club and Prosper as well as Gold Sponsors SoFi, Millennium Trust and Convene.
Last Chance to Buy Tickets
Ok, so this is not the very last chance but we do expect to sell out before the event. Ticket sales are coming in at 4-5 a day right now and that number is increasing as we get closer to the event. We have another 70 tickets available and from what I have heard many conference going New Yorkers leave it to the last week before signing up. So, if you have been thinking about attending then please register sooner rather than later.
The Agenda is Shaping Up Nicely
We will kick things off at LendIt with a morning keynote from Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club, bright and early for everyone, particularly those not from the east coast. Renaud’s presentation will begin at 8:40am Eastern. Soon after that I will be moderating a session on consumer p2p lending featuring Scott Sanborn of Lending Club, Ron Suber of Prosper, Matt Symons of SocietyOne (from Australia) and Peter Behrens of Ratesetter (from the UK). We will be talking about the rapid growth that the industry is experiencing, where the borrowers are coming from, what innovations are coming and much more.
We are also going to have a focus on small business lending at LendIt. There has been such interest in the small business space that we decided to include two separate panels on business lending. We will also have a student loan panel, a venture capital panel and one that I am looking forward to a panel on big data and the innovations that are happening with underwriting. You can see the complete agenda on our website.
You Can “Attend” LendIt for Free by Watching Online
For those of you who cannot be in New York in person we are planning on doing a live webcast of the event from our location at the Convene Conference Center in mid-town Manhattan. This will be completely free and we hope to have this available for the entire event. I will share more details about the live webcast on the blog a day or two before the conference.
Never having put on a conference before I have been surprised by how much work is involved. There are literally hundreds of details and people to coordinate but I am happy with how it is coming together now. I look forward to seeing you either in person or online at LendIt on June 20th.
