Earlier this week Seattle-based startup LendingRobot completed a $3 million funding round led by Runa Capital, a venture firm operating globally from its offices in Moscow and San Francisco. Club Italia Investimenti II also participated in the round along with individual investors, but the amount of their respective contributions was not disclosed.
An automated investment service for online lending, LendingRobot claims to serve more than 1,000 clients totaling around $15 million in assets. The startup uses high-speed automation software and machine-learning algorithms to help investors select and invest in loans less than one second after they become available.
LendingRobot supports more than 40 different filtering criteria for Lending Club and Prosper Marketplace, two of the leading online lending platforms in the U.S..
LendingRobot initially started out in 2012 of the need of its two founders, Emmanuel Marot and Gilad Golan, to automate their own personal investments. Loans selection requires sophisticated credit scoring and investing is both time-consuming and competitive. The lack of liquidity also makes it hard for investors to exit the market and prevents short term investing. Marot and Golan recognized that their technology could help overcome barriers and decided to deliver a solution helping individual investors to compete with hedge funds.
Runa’s second fund, Runa Capital II, was launched in July 2014 with a target size of $200 million. The firm focuses on cloud, Internet and mobile technologies especially in Europe. Among its first portfolio companies are Brainly, a global social learning network based in Krakow, Poland, and SchoolMint, a leading provider of mobile and online enrollment systems for US public, charter and private schools.