Last year dozens of marketplace lending platforms launched all over the world. Given the publicity this industry has received recently many more platforms will likely launch this year. And every one of these platforms will need software to run their lending operation.
Enter Cloud Lending. Founded in 2012 by Snehal Fulzele and Darpan Saini in the San Francisco Bay Area, they provide cloud based lending technology, hence the name. With 45 clients, many names that you would recognize, in 16 countries Cloud Lending has quickly become the leading software provider in our industry.
Cloud Lending’s software is built on Salesforce.com and does pretty much everything a lending platform would need from origination, underwriting, servicing and collection to reporting and accounting. They take care of the investor side as well with earnings calculations, fractionalizing payments and on boarding. Clients can choose Cloud Lending to just power their back office or use their consumer facing tools as well.
One company using Cloud Lending, that has been featured on Lend Academy before is Harmoney, based in New Zealand. This is what CEO Neil Roberts had to say about Cloud Lending:
Cloud Lending’s platform helps support our mission by delivering an unmatched and customizable engine, the scalability to service our rapidly growing borrower volume, and by empowering us to bring our services rapidly to a global market.
This is one of the key decisions that marketplace lenders need to make. Do you build a platform yourself or go with a third party like Cloud Lending. Of course, off the shelf software will not be for everyone, but one of the big advantages will be speed to market. Building a fully featured website and back end from scratch would take many months, with Cloud Lending a new platform could be operational in a matter of weeks.
Now, Cloud Lending is not just focused on marketplace lenders. They also provide software to all kinds of alternative lenders such as microfinance institutes, credit unions and equipment leasing companies but they see online lending as the big growth area.
Introducing CL Marketplace
To that end last month Cloud Lending introduced CL Marketplace, an end-to-end software solution built from the ground up for marketplace lenders. In my conversation with the founders they gave me a long list of the benefits of their new software suite but suffice it to say it can run every aspect of a marketplace lending platform.
Late last year Cloud Lending completed a $1 million angel round led by Green Visor Capital, Epic Ventures and individual investor Tim McCarthy, former President of Charles Schwab, former President of Fidelity Investment Advisor Group and former CEO of Nikko Asset Management. This will provide them with the capital to help scale their business.
The marketplace lending ecosystem is still being developed. While companies like Orchard are helping connect investors with platforms Cloud Lending is providing the technology to help get these platforms off the ground.
About once a week I hear from an entrepreneur looking to start some kind of online lending platform. And often one of the first things they ask me about is software. Cloud Lending are staking their claim to be the leader in this department. No doubt there will be competitors as the industry grows but Cloud Lending are clearly one of the leading options available today.
Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of LendIt Fintech, the world’s first and largest digital media and events company focused on fintech. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and he is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series. Peter has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, the Financial Times, and dozens of other publications.