Toronto-based CommunityLend.com is now one step closer to launch. They have secured $2.5M in venture capital funding and have announced a board of directors including Barry Campbell, former MP and Secretary to the Minister of Finance and Jim Jones CEO of GMAC Residential Capital. The $2.5M came from a mix of individuals and institutions from the US and the UK.In a statement on their website CommunityLend said, "The process that we have just gone through to raise our own capital was not so dissimilar to the process that borrowers will be going through at CommunityLend.com to raise theirs. We believe this alignment around the work and process involved in collecting people around a financial request has made us better facilitators for our customer’s financial needs."
CommunityLend hopes to tap the estimated $110-billion (Canadian) unsecured consumer debt market in Canada as soon as spring 2008. While P2P lending options have greatly increased in the U.S. over the last several months Canadians still do not have any social lending options.
