OnDeck, another online lender, goes public with a bang

Shares of OnDeck, an online lender like San Francisco’s Lending Club, soared on its first day as a public company Wednesday, one week after Lending Club set the pace with its monster IPO.

Unlike Lending Club, which also originates consumer loans, OnDeck has focused strictly on the small-business sector, originating loans ranging from $5,000 to $250,000.

Since its inception in 2007, the company has originated $1.7 billion in loans — 90 percent in the past two years.

Recent examples include Fundbox, a self-described “cash flow” service in San Francisco’s Mission District that originates loans for small-business owners (and freelancers) to cover the waiting period between invoice and payment.

The program “fills a significant void in the marketplace, offering an enormous opportunity to better serve small-business owners with easy online access to a low-interest-rate SBA loan,” said San Francisco SBA district director Mark Quinn, in a statement announcing the program in May.

BlackRock and T. Rowe Price made a bundle from their late-stage investments in Lending Club, which in April acquired a Massachusetts company, Springstone Financial, a provider of loans to finance private education and elective medical procedures.

In September, a Los Angeles hedge fund kicked in $73 million for RealtyMogul to finance business loans linked to real estate.

“The rising institutional investor interest in marketplace lending platforms is finally catching the attention of bankers who up until now considered this as a marginal trend,” said Helman.

Right behind her is another Los Angeles startup, Asset Avenue, which says it seeks to “transform the real estate lending and investing market for everyone involved.”

Houston’s Realty Wealth goes after overseas investors interested in triple-net leases (where the commercial property tenant pays all the expenses associated with the leased property).