Even the robots are going alternative

Share

• Copy link
• Facebook
• X
• Linkedin
• Whatsapp
• Pinterest

Share this article

Join the conversation

Follow us

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Newsletter

Get the MoneyWeek Newsletter

Get the latest financial news, insights and expert analysis from our award-winning MoneyWeek team, to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors

---

By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

You are now subscribed

Your newsletter sign-up was successful

---

Want to add more newsletters?

Twice daily

MoneyWeek

Get the latest financial news, insights and expert analysis from our award-winning MoneyWeek team, to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.

Signup +

Four times a week

Look After My Bills

Sign up to our free money-saving newsletter, filled with the latest news and expert advice to help you find the best tips and deals for managing your bills. Start saving today!

Signup +

---

An account already exists for this email address, please log in.

Subscribe to our newsletter

US startup LendingRobot sounds like an attempt to tick every box in innovative finance. The Seattle-based firm is a "robo-adviser" (an automated online investment service); it invests in P2P lending; and it uses blockchain, the technology du jour (which we will be writing about in more detail in MoneyWeek in the near future).

Last week, it launched its "LendingRobot Series", which it describes rather grandly as "the next step in the evolution of investment in alternative lending". This "robo-fund" will combine "cloud-based automation" with "machine-learning technology" to offer "superior and predictable returns that are uncorrelated to the stockmarket".

The fund will invest in P2P loans on multiple platforms including Lending Club, Prosper Marketplace and Funding Circle, which will "enable investors to more easily and cheaply diversify their investments across different platforms and loans", says LendingRobot.

MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

It will also invest in real estate loans. Transactions will be recorded via blockchain, the technology that underpins cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which will offer an immutable record. "We display every single note, even if the investment in it is tiny. You can view each payment made on it and all the vitals about each loan," LendingRobot's chief executive Emmanuel Marot told GeekWire.com.

Marot and co-founder Gilad Golan, who has since left to join Google, met while working at Microsoft. LendingRobot grew out of software they built to monitor loans they were making through Lending Club.