Peerform Announces Capital Raise to Fuel its Growth
New York, NY (PRWEB) April 08, 2014 -- Peerform: (http://www.peerform.com), a New York based peer-to-peer financing start-up, announced today the closing of a $1 million seed round to promote its development and take advantage of the growing demand for quality alternatives to traditional bank lending products.
“Despite the growth of P2P lending in recent years, there is a tremendous opportunity to leverage technology in order to address the structural problems in the consumer loan market,” said Mikael Rapaport, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Peerform. “Today, peer-based lending solutions represent a small fraction of all new consumer loans made, but the conditions are favorable for long-term market share gains.”
The new financing will be used to scale the development of the company’s lending platform that is powered by Peerform's "Loan Analyzer." Developed in conjunction with three leading economists who have a deep background in online consumer lending, applied microeconomics and empirical finance, Peerform's new tool provides a differentiated perspective in determining the creditworthiness of a prospective borrower. By using its Loan Analyzer, the company expects to be able to onboard loans from borrowers with FICO scores as low as 600.
In conjunction with the financing, the company also announced that Gregg M. Schoenberg will lead the company’s board of directors. Schoenberg is the founder of Wescott Capital, an early stage investor in Fintech companies, and was a senior managing director and group head at Natixis North America. “I am delighted to work alongside the Peerform team and believe that the company is on track to expand the universe of prime and near prime borrowers who can participate in the peer lending industry. At present, far too many solid borrower candidates are turned away by the other P2P platforms," said Schoenberg.
The funding was led by Corporest Development, a European-based advisory and investment firm led by Charles D. Ohayon, and included several executives from global investment banks. Ohayon has also agreed to join the board and will work with the other directors and management on strategic matters.
To learn more about Peerform, please visit http://www.peerform.com
Mikael Rapaport, Peerform, http://www.peerform.com, +1 212 920 5827, [email protected]
Share this article