Living up to its name, peer-to-peer lending marketplace Prosper has just closed a $70 million funding round led by Francisco Partners, with Institutional Venture Partners and Phenomen Ventures participating. This brings Prosper to almost $150 raised to date, and represents a strong rebound for a company that saw all trading on its platform suspended by the SEC in 2008 for failing to register as a seller of securities.
Since then the company has reformed, brought in experts from the traditional banking sector and seen strong results. Monthly platform originations rose from $9 million in January 2013 to over $100 million in April 2014. Last month, Prosper passed $1 billion in total loans originated on the platform and plans to see that number more than double by the end of 2014.
Prosper is also pursuing a very different strategy than its main rival in the space Lending Club, which has also finished a series of very successful funding rounds of late. Lending Club has recently expanded into business loans and is open about its IPO intentions. Prosper has no plans to pursue either business lending or interest in an IPO.
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