Another multibillion IPO...when do the European Lending exits begin?
People walk through the Stanford University campus. Social Finance Inc., with 200 employees, started in 2011 as a peer-to-peer lending company for Stanford University students and graduates -- with funds crowd-sourced from the school’s alumni. Social Finance Inc., the online-lending platform known as SoFi, is planning an initial public offering that would value the company at $3.5 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said, almost triple what it received in a recent funding round. The company may raise $500 million this year, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private. The San Francisco-based startup plans to file its prospectus confidentially in the second quarter and proceed in the second half, the people said. That timeline may change depending on market conditions.