We have not discussed impact investing at all on the podcast until now. Our guest in episode 46 is Jacob Haar, the Co-founder and Managing Partner at Community Investment Management (CIM), who has been on mission to bring awareness of impact investing to the marketplace lending industry. His company is focused on providing responsible and transparent financing to small business. His fund invests in small business loans originated by marketplace lending platforms but he is very selective on which platforms he will work with. Listen to the full podcast to find out more.

LendingHome have been in business for less than 18 months but in that short time they have come to be the market leader for online real estate lendng. With some big name backers they have scaled very quickly and have now issued several hundred million dollars in loans.

Loan servicing is a critical part of this industry for both platforms and investors. We want borrowers to pay their loan on time, but as I learned in this interview, that is just one piece of what a good loan servicer does.

There are many innovative companies in this space but I think Kabbage stands out above the pack. They are doing things in lending that have never been tried before, or even thought about, and they are doing it successfully. They are truly a 21st century lender that could not have existed even 10 years ago.

Karen Mills is someone who has a unique perspective on small business. She was a venture capitalist for 25 years before moving to Washington in late 2008 when she was appointed by President Obama to head the Small Business Administration, right in the thick of the financial crisis. For five years, until late 2013, she spent all of her time trying to help American small businesses and a big part of that was improving access to capital. Today, she is a senior fellow at Harvard Business School and is still very much focused on helping small business.

LendingTree is a company that is familiar to most of us. But it has only been recently that they have become an important part of the marketplace lending ecosystem. With a huge and growing appetite for borrowers LendingTree is one of the few companies that can provide just what the platforms want: borrowers at scale.

Al Goldstein is the CEO and co-founder of Avant. He has quietly led the establishment and growth of what is now one of the leading players in this industry. Their singular focus on what they call middle class borrowers has served them well and provides them with true differentiation from other platforms in this industry. Avant has taken an innovative approach to this industry and there are many things we can learn from studying their playbook. They are clearly a company to watch closely.

When it comes to small business lending Funding Circle is the largest online marketplace, at least when it comes to traditional term loans. They are the largest small business lending platform in the UK and the first multi-national online lending platform, operating in both the UK and the US. Our guest for episode 38 is Sam Hodges, the co-founder of Funding Circle USA, who is shepherding his company through a period of rapid growth.

There is a lot of speculation in this industry about the role of banks – how they view this industry and where they will fit in the future. In the latest edition of the Lend Academy Podcast my guest is someone who has a unique perspective on these questions. Frank Rotman is a partner at QED Investors, the leading venture capital firm in this space, but he also spent over a decade at Capital One. Frank is also the author of the new blog, Confessions of a Fintech Junkie, where he writes regularly about the broader fintech industry.