As the economy recovers, investors are seeking new avenues for solid returns. One popular option is to lend on peer-to-peer marketplaces like Prosper, LendingClub, Funding Circle, and Kabbage. These services offer borrowers affordable personal and business loans, and promise better returns for lenders. However, most people may not realize that supplying the marketplace with investment opportunities is more difficult than attracting investors to fund those loans. Each marketplace looks for a slightly different profile from their ideal borrower. They end up struggling to find the right borrowers, and discard most of their leads during the qualification process.
I’m thrilled to announce our investment in the EVEN Financial team to solve this very problem. EVEN Financial’s technology affordably sources, verifies, and creates a comprehensive profile of borrowers. Using this information, they programmatically match borrowers with the most compatible lending platform and reduce lead costs.
I love the win-win-win value proposition. The marketplace gets its supply, lenders get more opportunities, and borrowers get loans more efficiently and effectively.
The EVEN team has a deep background in marketplace lending and we’ve enjoyed working with them in the past. Through StockTwits, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Ian Rosen (CEO) when he was the General Manager at MarketWatch. Social Leverage previously backed Orchard Platform, where CTO Phill Rosen (no relation to Ian Rosen) was a co-founder, and we’re excited to be working with him again. Jarid Maged, EVEN’s third co-founder is an ad-tech supply-side infrastructure vet. I’m confident that Ian, Phill, and Jarid are going to knock it out of the park!