As reported at CrowdfundInsider.
P2P CROWDFUNDING PLATFORM SEES EXPONENTIAL GROWTH.
DealStruck is a P2P crowdfunding platform that is focused on loans for small businesses. They want to combine the best of crowdlending with the best of traditional finance. Dealstruck states that more than 82% of small businesses seeking loans from banks are rejected. This is where they jump in to help out.
Dealstruck CEO Ethan Senturia recently shared his thoughts about their P2P platform;
Although we’ve already experienced firsthand the impact that peer-to-peer lending can have on providing fair and transparent loans to small businesses, the entrance of established players such as Lending Club will bring welcome visibility and validation to the industry. Our job is to help the small business owner, and we saw very early that peer-to-peer will be the future of small businesses finance. The more awareness small businesses have of P2P as a fast, easy, and secure way to obtain business financing, the better for all involved.
Dealstruck is not alone in this market and there is every expectation that competition will increase but then the market is huge. As banks have endured years of burdensome regulation, P2P platforms can fill a fast growing void.
Dealstruck is a unique capital provider to the small business market because we offer a suite of financing products, ranging from term loans to working capital lines of credit in larger amounts (up to $250,000) than typical alternative lenders, stated Senturia.”
“As compared to Lending Club, we are able to work with small businesses that are underbanked, and that are often stuck in opaque, inflexible, high-priced alternative products, such as factoring and merchant cash advance. Dealstruck fits nicely in the financing continuum between prime (banks) and subprime (MCA and factoring), offering small businesses a range of products and rates that help them to build their credit to move into lower cost banking options over time.
Commenting on the market size Senturia stated;
With constantly fluctuating regulations at the state and federal level, consolidation of community banks and credit unions nationwide, and an increased effort to disintermediate the commercial lending industry, the market for P2P lending for small business is growing exponentially.
With origination volumes ranging from $178 billion for banks to $125 billion for factoring and $5-8 billion for merchant cash advance products (as of 2011), we see an unfilled need in a huge market. And as P2P fits in the larger crowdfunding landscape, Massolution reported that, across all crowdfunding activity worldwide, the growth in funding volumes in 2012 was primarily driven by lending, which grew 111% in 2012, compared to 85% growth in reward-based crowdfunding and 30% growth in equity crowdfunding.
Dealstruck wants to define the future of lending to small business.