John Donovan has been involved in online lending since the very early days. He joined Lending Club in January of 2007, before they had even launched, staying there through 2012. Since then he has been an advisor to many platforms, he spent some time at Circleback Lending and late last year joined Bizfi as CEO replacing the founder in that role.

Combatting fraud is top of mind for every online lending platform. When you are essentially giving away money it is absolutely critical that you identify bad actors before they are able to obtain a loan. Thankfully, there are companies out there that are readily able to help.

One of the more interesting companies in our space is Lenddo. They are a unique company in that they are truly global, operating in 20 countries around the world with their headquarters in Singapore. They don’t make loans themselves, at least not anymore. They license their proprietary software to financial institutions in developing countries to help expand access to credit.

As many of you know LendIt USA 2017 is right around the corner and at this time every year I like to bring my good friend and partner, Jason Jones, on to the Lend Academy Podcast. Jason gives his perspective on where the industry is at today and how LendIt is going to address the latest trends at our big annual event.

In many ways SoFi has become the leading company in all of fintech at least in this country. They raised $1 billion in Q3 of 2015, the largest equity round ever in our industry by a considerable margin. Since then they have continued to add new products, break records and execute flawlessly.

Many Lend Academy Podcast listeners are early adopters of alternative investment ideas. With that in mind we have a different kind of guest on this episode of the show.

Prospect Capital Corporation is a publicly traded BDC (NASDAQ: PSEC) with a market cap of around $3 billion as of this writing. They are a leading provider of private debt and private equity to middle-market companies in the United States. A few years ago they began investing in loans originated by marketplace lending platforms and they now have a sizable portfolio.

ApplePie Capital has honed in on a target market that virtually no one is focusing on in marketplace lending: franchise financing. They have signed up a number of major brands, helping franchisees with the financing to start a new franchise business.

SmartBiz Loans does one thing and they do it very well: SBA loans for small businesses. This singular focus has meant they have been able to make impressive inroads very quickly – becoming the largest provider of SBA loans under $350,000 in less than four years.

A company that has flown somewhat under the radar but has already achieved significant success is MoneyLion. They are part of a new breed of online lenders that see themselves as far more than a transaction-based business, they want to provide real value to their customers beyond a loan.