EBay-Style Loans Lure Summers to Mack in Wall Street Asset Craze

On a June morning in midtown Manhattan, more than 300 investors cram into a conference room at the Convene Innovation Center, nibbling on pastries and waiting for Renaud Laplanche to take the stage. As founder and chief executive officer of LendingClub Corp., Laplanche has rock star status at this inaugural LendIt conference, where Wall Street investment managers clamor for insight into the world of peer-to-peer lending.

Laplanche, 42, a French securities lawyer turned Silicon Valley entrepreneur, expects San Francisco-based LendingClub to originate $2 billion in loans this year and double that in 2014. As he takes the stage, he’s fresh off a $125 million investment led by Google Inc., Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its October issue.