Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Invests in Lending Club

SAN FRANCISCO, June 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Lending Club (http://www.lendingclub.com), the leading platform for investing in and obtaining personal loans, announced today a $15 million equity investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and the appointment of Mary Meeker, general partner at KPCB, to the company's board of directors. John Mack, who recently joined Lending Club's board and currently serves as chairman emeritus of Morgan Stanley, also made a $2.5 million equity investment in the company. The investments bring the total funding raised by Lending Club to date to $100 million, bringing the company's total in unrestricted cash to more than $45 million.

"Lending Club is helping reinvent the consumer lending industry," said Mary Meeker. "It's the kind of opportunity that Kleiner Perkins is interested in and I knew I wanted to be involved."

Meeker, who joined KPCB as a partner in 2010, is also on the board of directors of Square and leads KPCB's US $1 billion Digital Growth Fund (DGF). Previously, Meeker worked at Morgan Stanley where she served as managing director and research analyst from 1991 to 2010, focusing on discovering and understanding emerging technologies, building relationships with entrepreneurs and supporting category-defining companies during their critical phases of market adoption and growth.

"Kleiner Perkins is virtually synonymous with breakthrough brands we love like Amazon.com, Google, and Twitter. Mary's unique depth of experience across both the financial industry and with the Internet's category leaders will be instrumental in Lending Club's continued growth and mainstream adoption," said Laplanche. "We are thrilled to welcome both Kleiner Perkins and Mary as our new partners."

Lending Club continues its significant growth, with more than $650 million in cumulative loan originated through the platform and adding more than $135 million each quarter in new loans. By focusing on high-credit-quality borrowers, the Lending Club platform has generated 19 consecutive quarters of positive returns for investors. The company's wholly-owned subsidiary LC Advisors, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor, has launched two funds in the last year and has more than $100 million in assets under management.

Meeker joins Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche, former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, Jeff Crowe of Norwest Venture Partners, Daniel Ciporin of Canaan Partners and Rebecca Lynn of Morgenthaler Ventures on Lending Club's board of directors.

About Lending Club
Lending Club utilizes technology and innovation to reduce the cost of traditional banking and offer borrowers better rates and investors better returns. Lending Club started operations in 2007 and has been recognized for its results and innovation by the Harvard Business Review and Dow Jones, was named one of Forbes' America's Most Promising Companies in 2011 and recognized as a 2012 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. Lending Club is based in San Francisco, California. More information is available at: http://www.lendingclub.com.

Additional information about Lending Club is available in the prospectus for Lending Club's notes, which can be obtained on Lending Club's website at https://www.lendingclub.com/info/prospectus.action.

About Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Since its founding in 1972, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has backed entrepreneurs in more than 500 ventures including AOL, Amazon.com, Citrix, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Google, Groupon, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Netscape, Sun, Symantec, Verisign, webMD and Zynga. KPCB portfolio companies employ more than 350,000 people worldwide. More than 150 of the firm's portfolio companies have gone public, and many other KPCB ventures have achieved success through mergers and acquisitions. KPCB focuses its global investments in three practice areas - digital, greentech and life sciences - and provides entrepreneurs with company-building expertise out of its offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Shanghai.

Information in this press release is not an offer to sell securities or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. Some of the statements in this above are "forward-looking statements." The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "predict," "project," "will," "would" and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. The Company may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Actual results or events could differ materially from the plans, intentions and expectations disclosed in forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.  Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investments may lose value over time and no return is guaranteed.

Currently only residents of the following states may invest in Lending Club notes: CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, KY (accredited investors), LA, ME, MN, MO, MS, MT, NH, NV, NY, RI, SC, SD, UT, VA, WA, WI, WV, or WY.

SOURCE Lending Club

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