China’s Lending Club Clone Dianrong Gets Set For $500M In Next Funding

Here goes another big financing of a China tech startup. Soul Htite, founder and CEO of Shanghai-based Lending Club clone Dianrong.com, is reportedly seeking to raise as much as $500 million in its next funding round. Planned for next year, the new funds are earmarked for business expansion in China and other emerging markets in Asia. Htite is a founder of both Lending Club in the U.S. and Dianrong in China.

Htite and Chinese partner Kevin Guo founded Dianrong in 2012, and it has since grown to 26 mainland offices and 300,000 active lenders, originating over $150 million in new loans every month. The company previously raised $207 million in August, in a round jointly led by Standard Chartered’s PE arm and China Fintech Fund.

Dianrong’s growth highlights the tremendous growth in China’s online, P2P lending business, as well as the funding that has followed and fueled it. In October, monthly online lending volumes in Chinese P2P reached $19 billion, four times the level of the same period one year ago, according to a joint report by Wangdaizhijia and Yingcan.

Some of the country’s leading online lenders are looking to bring on global investors. Earlier this month, Chinese P2P lending firm Yirendai filed to raise $100 million to IPO on the NYSE, as the first Chinese company of its kind to seek a U.S. listing.