auxmoney, Germany’s leading online marketplace for peer-to-peer loans secures $12 million investment from Index Ventures and Union Square Ventures

Duesseldorf, March 14, 2013 – auxmoney, Germany’s leading online marketplace where private consumers can borrow directly from private investors, secures an investment of $12 million from Index Ventures (other investments include Skype and Dropbox) and Union Square Ventures (other investments include Twitter and Lending Club, the highly successful P2P lending platform in the US). This funding puts auxmoney in a unique position to further capitalise on its market leading position in Germany’s P2P landscape and continue on its rapid expansion course.

Founded by Raffael Johnen, Philipp Kriependorf and Philip Kamp in 2007, auxmoney is a web-based marketplace allowing private borrowers to secure personal loans funded by private investors. auxmoney eliminates the high cost and complexity of traditional bank lending by offering a transparent marketplace where investors and borrowers can interact directly with each other.

Since inception auxmoney has facilitated over 11,000 loans worth €45 million to private borrowers, over 50% of which were issued in the last 12 months. The company’s growth is fuelled by investors seeking attractive and predictable returns on their capital as well as borrowers looking for better rates or alternatives to traditional bank loans.

To further accelerate its growth, auxmoney recently enhanced its loan marketplace to offer a better experience for both investors and borrowers. As well as upgrading the site’s user interface, the company abolished all entry fees which were previously payable by loan applicants and launched an Investor Cockpit to deliver a fully transparent and convenient lending experience to all investors on auxmoney’s platform.

Raffael Johnen, co-founder and CEO of auxmoney said:
“We are delighted to welcome Index Ventures and Union Square Ventures, two prominent and highly experienced partners, on board. Both are intimately familiar with online marketplaces such as ours and ideally qualified within global financial services. As financial markets are undergoing structural changes, our strong financial backing supports our ambitious expansion plans and put us in an ideal position to further capitalise on the growing demand for crowdlending in Germany.”

auxmoney intends to use the funding to further enhance its product offering and significantly expand its 30-strong team in Duesseldorf.

Raffael Johnen explains: “We are about to witness a major shift in consumer behaviour towards peer-to-peer lending. auxmoney is at the forefront of this development. With our new partners on board, we are ready to turn crowdlending into a recognised, exciting and integral part of Germany’s consumer finance landscape.”

Neil Rimer, co-founder and Partner of Index Ventures, said:
“We are excited to be partnering with this outstanding financial services firm offering a strong value proposition: great returns for investors, low cost and unbureaucratic loans for borrowers. auxmoney has already done a terrific job of building awareness and attracting a large customer base in Germany. On the back of auxmoney’s recent platform upgrades, which further improve the company’s services to both borrowers and investors, we expect auxmoney to become a vital alternative to traditional bank loans in Germany.“

John Buttrick, Partner at Union Square Ventures, commented:
“We are thrilled to invest in auxmoney. The company is led by an impressive and experienced management team who have developed a highly scalable platform that will continue to benefit from the challenges faced by the banks. Union Square Ventures made prior investments in Lending Club (US) in 2011 and Funding Circle (UK) in 2012. We believe loan marketplaces such as auxmoney, Lending Club and Funding Circle are a more efficient business model for both borrowers and investors. We look forward to auxmoney becoming a leading Internet company in Europe’s financial services space.”

About auxmoney GmbH
auxmoney is an online marketplace that brings together creditworthy borrowers and savvy investors so that both can benefit financially. auxmoney eliminates the high cost and complexity of traditional bank lending by offering a transparent marketplace where its users can directly invest in and borrow from each other. With over 11,000 financed loans, www.auxmoney.com is Germany’s leading online platform for loans from private investors to private borrowers. To date, more than 20,000 investors have invested about €45 million in private loans on auxmoney’s platform to achieve above-average returns compared to other interest-bearing products.

 About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a leading venture capital firm that was founded to bring the west coast style of VC investing to Europe. Over the past 17 years, the firm has helped build a start-up ecosystem in Europe from the ground up. Index has backed companies like Skype, MySQL and Betfair, and its portfolio currently consists of more than 150 innovative companies, including SoundCloud, Dropbox, Funding Circle, TransferWise and Etsy. In the last 24 months, Index raised more than €1 billion to invest in start-ups.

About Union Square Ventures
Union Square Ventures (USV) is one of the world’s leading venture capital firm investing in internet and mobile internet businesses. Headquartered in New York City, USV backs passionate, experienced entrepreneurs focused on creating highly scalable services and significant value propositions for their end users. Over the past eight years, USV has been directly involved in the development of more than 40 companies, including Twitter, Lending Club, Tumblr, Foursquare, Kickstarter, Hailo and Zynga.