Beyond Banks? Peer-to-Peer Lending Is On the Upswing, Google Dives In

Lending Club, the peer-to-peer loan firm, recently announced a big investment in the firm's stock by Google and Foundation Capital. Google and Foundation bought $125 million in shares of the firm's outstanding equity on secondary markets (that is, from previous investors--not newly issued stock) for three times the stock's valuation a little less than a year ago. Lending Club says their system has funded $1.7 billion in loans since inception and, according to Tech Crunch, Lending Club hopes to t...