Comments on: $20 Million For Prosper: P2P Lending

By: P2P-Kredite.com Blog » Prosper erhält 20 Millionen Dollar Venture Capital

P2P-Kredite.com Blog » Prosper erhält 20 Millionen Dollar Venture Capital — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:20:28 +0000

[...] Techcrunch berichtet, erhält Prosper.com weitere 20 Mio. US$ Venture Capital von DAG Ventures und Meritech [...]

By: Stu

Stu — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:55:14 +0000

Not thrilled on prosper yet either. Loaned about $1200 over the past year (15 loans), all credit scores, etc. Have made $70, but 2 loans defaulted (an A and a B) giving a loss of $270, so net = (-$200) right now. SIGH. Roughly a -15% return. LOL. My mutuals are doing +12%. Have also tried Kiva, so far full repayments.

By: The eBay For Loans — Prosper « Obiter Dictum

The eBay For Loans — Prosper « Obiter Dictum — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:50:45 +0000

[...] site has been doing pretty well, or at least very well enough to attract another US$20 million in venture capital [...]

By: Av

Av — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 04:31:40 +0000

now all prosper needs to do is launch internationally and not just be available in the usa.

By: NeoTechie

NeoTechie — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:35:59 +0000

Life long and Prosper !

I could not help myself.
Small businesses are growing exponentially so these
small loans will allow Prosper to become very successful
probably very fast.

May the force be with you !

By: Sambay

Sambay — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:20:54 +0000

How many people are there who are ruthless as banks, have decent savings and willing to take risk? The answer will show whether Proesper will prosper or not.

I still prefer Kiva, a small lending community that lends like charity.

By: Mac Lender

Mac Lender — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:10:00 +0000

I’ve been lending on prosper for over a year and after 300+ loans and $20k in capital I’m performing at CD rates… So it has not been a money making op like I hoped but most of my defaults have been early loans that has less scrutiny and less information available. I do believe prosper will have a long term market but it is unlikely to produce better than 8-10% returns. I can usually get 10% in the stock-market so unless prosper can improve its default rate significantly it will have a hard time becoming the next ebay…

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:26:16 +0000

I mentioned the $25 referral program they have going right now. If you are going to sign up as a new lender you should click through to Prosper on a referral link - both parties get $25. I’m sure you can find one on the web or click thru on my name. The promotion is running through the end of August.

This means each new lender is costing them $50. Is it worth it for Prosper? Even though Prosper has 300,000+ members so far there have only been about 11,000 loans that have funded and about 22,500 people that have loaned out money. Add those two together and you get 33,500 lenders or borrowers with loans. Only 1 out of 10 members has funded a loan or borrowed money.

By: aref ahmed sharaf eldin

aref ahmed sharaf eldin — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:12:27 +0000

hi iam aref from egypt can you help me send me cheque $20 million
please ineed the money now
full name aref ahmed sharaf eldin
addess; 20 nobar st. bab ellouk 11461 cairo. egypt
tel; 0020182967071

By: Fabian

Fabian — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:39:41 +0000

@4 Josh: Even though I agree with you, it has to start somewhere. This is not the smartest comment I have ever made, but one I truly believe in. If the whole thing ends up a wash, where investors in the venture + investors in the loans neither wind or loose, then we will see services like this slowly develop to mayor profitability. Slowly in this case is measured in 10 to 15 year increments. But it is a big if.

The bigger question in my mind is about monetization and democratization of the web. Are these two concepts orthogonal or tangential?

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:39:26 +0000

Of course I didn’t mean Zoho (wow, they are doing everything!) - I meant Zopa.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:37:36 +0000

I just wrote an article about Prosper yesterday (click on my name for it). They are about to face some significant competition from Zoho which is expected to move to the U.S. within the next year. Facebook’s LendingClub is also a new competitor. They are trying to grow the community rapidly and one way they are doing that is through a $25 referral program right now. If successful, that will cost them a couple million. I think that you can earn a 10-15% return through Prosper but you must invest with care. Many lenders bid on high risk loans and face high default.

By: r

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:37:16 +0000

Like Josh, I’ve been experimenting with Prosper (only $3K though) … from a straight investment side of things, you’ll be really lucky to walk away from Prosper earning more than what you would have gotten from a CD over 3 years. It’s a total wash.

Prosper did a fantastic job cutting down on fraudulent listings over the past few months. Prosper does manual vetting of every listing now, which slows down the process but protects the lenders … this is probably very labor intensive, and Prosper doesn’t make enough on their listings right now to be even remotely break-even.

The problem with Prosper is now they’re acting more like a bank using other people’s money. They’ve started collecting DQed loans and selling them off … that has to be time consuming and costly.

The idea is intriguing and the execution has been pretty good … unfortunately I think this idea is far ahead of its time … but as long as lenders keep stepping up the plate, I’m sure Prosper will do fine

By: Wil Schroter

Wil Schroter — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:00:32 +0000

The number of moving parts to orchestrate this are enormous. I’m impressed at the effort but it’s probably a little bit ahead of it’s time.

That said, we’ve had great success getting small businesses funded at our site - the Go BIG Network.

Propsper is one of those companies I just want to see work because it represents a true innovation on-line. Not the biggest idea ever, but a good step in the right use of on-line communities.

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:52:48 +0000

I too have followed prosper since incubation. I spent a decent amount of time on the system, and loaned out over 200 loans, coming to about 30K, and, about 20+ have defaulted, yes, even b & A credit ratings..

Pretty much my investments are turning out to be a wash. I don’t think the market is ready for these p2p lending services, there is still a lot of flake’s / fraudulent individuals out there.

There are a lot better investments out there that can provide the same if not larger return on investment (Ex; Real Estate Development projects)

If anyone has any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thanks,
Josh
Josh@stomel.com

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:52:26 +0000

WTF do they possibly need with $40 mil? And, Miek, for all your gripes about what’s wrong with the Valley/smorthering innovation, etc., suggesting that closing a huge funding round necessarily means a co. is doing well is part of the problematic thinking. That a bunch of VCs are willing to throw money at a company tells me nothing about its true value. When will we ever learn?

By: Concrete Stain

Concrete Stain — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:28:09 +0000

Kinda - a paradox -

- a Lending company - getting a *investment ….

- 40 million? … seems as if - its been bought /

-RB

By: Eric Willis

Eric Willis — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:41:16 +0000

I followed this product when it made it’s beta run with the creditboards.com community. I think it is poised for more growth. It is a great product and users over at creditboards.com were really happy about the results they were receiving…congrats Prosper…