A lot has been written about small businesses and their lack of access to capital. This was exacerbated by the financial crisis but it is something that many small businesses have struggled with for a long time. Traditionally there have been two primary sources of outside capital for a small business: a bank loan and a credit card. Not any more. Today, small businesses have a wealth of financing options and one of these options is OnDeck.

Session 16 of the Lend Academy Podcast features Charles Moldow, a partner at the venture capital firm Foundation Capital. His firm has made several equity investments in the p2p lending industry, the most notable of which is their investment in Lending Club last year alongside Google.

Emmanuel Marot is the co-founder and president at LendingRobot. His company has created an investing tool of the same name that helps individual investors automate their investing on the Lending Club and Prosper platforms. LendingRobot uses the API of both platforms to execute loan orders as soon as new loans are added to the respective platforms.

My focus this week has been on LendIt as we gear up for our second annual conference. So, in Episode 14 of the Lend Academy Podcast I intervew my fellow LendIt co-founder, Dara Albright who is also the founder of Nowstreet Wire. We discuss many aspects of LendIt including:

Don Davis is the president of Prime Meridian Capital Management and the managing partner of the Prime Meridian Income (PMI) Fund. This is a fund for accredited investors that was started in 2012 and invests primarily on the Prosper platform today.

Alex Tonelli is the Founder and Managing Director of Funding Circle USA. He started Endurance Lending Network with Sam Hodges back in 2012, which I profiled here last summer, and this company merged with Funding Circle UK in October last year.

I was in San Francisco last month and I sat down with Prosper president, Ron Suber to record this conversation for the next edition of the Lend Academy Podcast. Ron Suber was part of the executive team that took control of Prosper early last year and they have been on a roll since then.

Last month I visited San Francisco and brought along my trusty audio recorder for a podcast interview in the Lending Club offices with Scott Sanborn. Sanborn joined Lending Club in 2010 as the Chief Marketing Officer and last year was promoted to Chief Operating Officer. He is responsible for Lending Club’s day to day operations and he has still maintained his marketing role.

On my recent trip to London I sat down with the founders of the three leading UK p2p lenders: Peter Behrens of Ratesetter, Samir Desai of Funding Circle and Giles Andrews of Zopa. This extended edition of the Lend Academy Podcast features my conversation with all three leaders.

While in London last week I sat down at the offices of Liberum Capital, a UK investment bank, to talk with Cormac Leech and his team. Liberum is somewhat unique in that they have a team devoted to researching the p2p lending market – they have probably more knowledge about this sector than any other investment bank in the UK or the US.