Prosper Marketplace Inc., which enables individuals to make loans to each other, has expanded its model to permit institutions to participate as lenders.
The San Francisco person-to-person lending facilitator added its institutional lending interface to its site Sunday.
"We're working to get institutional money … private equity, or even banks," Chris Larsen, Prosper's co-founder and chief executive, said in an interview Thursday.
The company said some institutional lenders were using its consumer tools, and it developed the new interface to make it easier for them to evaluate loan requests and make loans.
The change is invisible to borrowers; institutions seem identical to individuals on the Web site. Mr. Larsen said institutions would most likely use a Prosper portfolio template to invest money in a variety of loans simultaneously, and to create a diversified loan portfolio.
Prosper provides a daily update of all loans originated through its Web site so investors can track the performance of the overall marketplace.
