Renaud Laplanche

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Renaud Laplanche
Born1970
France
NationalityFrench
Alma materHEC Paris
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, Business executive
Years active1995–Present
Known forTripleHop Technologies (MatchPoint), Lending Club, Upgrade, Inc.

Renaud Laplanche (born 1970) is a French-American entrepreneur and business executive. He is the co-founder and CEO of the fintech company, Upgrade, Inc.[1] Prior to founding the company, Laplanche co-founded and served for a decade as the CEO of Lending Club, an American peer-to-peer lending company. He previously co-founded and led TripleHop Technologies, maker of the MatchPoint software, which was acquired by Oracle Corporation.[2]

Early life and education[edit]

Renaud Laplanche was born in 1970 and grew up in France.[3][4][5] He was interested in sailing and raced competitively on the national level,[6] winning the French sailing championships on Lasers, 13.5 ft, one-sail, one-man sailboats, in 1988 and 1990.[7]

Laplanche studied business and law. He received a post-graduate DESS-DJCE (J.D.) degree in Tax and Corporate Law from Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France, and an MBA degree from HEC Business School in Paris, France, and London Business School.[3][4][5]

Career[edit]

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton[edit]

From 1995 to 1999, Laplanche worked as a securities lawyer and senior associate at the law offices of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, first in Paris and later in New York.[3][8][9] The cases he worked on included mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and investment transactions involving technology companies.[6]

TripleHop Technologies[edit]

In New York, Laplanche soon left the law offices and, in 1999, jointly with Franck Nazikian,[10] founded a software company called TripleHop Technologies.[8] The company had an office in the North Tower of the New York World Trade Center that was destroyed in the September 11 attacks.[11] TripleHop suffered major losses, including its computers and recently developed software code.[7]

In 2003 TripleHop launched its MatchPoint crawler and search engine for enterprise content.[4][12] The engine provided a single search point for structured and unstructured data (databases, e-mail, file and document systems, the internet), used Support Vector Machine algorithms for indexing and concept-based retrieval, and collaborative filtering for correlating related topics, created a user profile for each user on the basis of user's search history to tailor query results to particular users, and permitted context-sensitive search where queries were expanded by synonyms from domain-specific thesaurus-type taxonomies.[13]

MatchPoint was adopted by many U.S. media companies (CNN, Turner Broadcasting, AOL, USA Today, ABC news, Dow Jones, New York Times and others) as their preferred search engine and attracted the attention of major software vendors.[6][12] In June 2005, TripleHop Technologies was acquired by Oracle Corporation and MatchPoint was integrated with Oracle's other products.[9][14] Laplanche reportedly earned 10 million USD from the acquisition.[8] He moved to California and from June 2005 to October 2006 worked at Oracle as the Head of Product Management, Search Technologies, managing integration and overseeing sales of search engine products.[3][12]

LendingClub[edit]

In 2006 Laplanche left Oracle and co-founded LendingClub. Laplanche had gotten the idea for the new company at the time when he started TripleHop and found that his credit card carried an 18% interest rate, while he was only earning 1.5% from the bank on high yield certificates of deposit. He thought that by connecting investors directly with borrowers, he could cut the banks out of the equation and deliver lower rates for borrowers and higher returns for investors.[6][15][16][17][18][19] LendingClub first launched on Facebook to leverage existing connections among users for testing users' trust and willingness to help one another financially, and to gather user feedback about the new service.[4] At that time, LendingClub was one of Facebook's first applications.[8]

In 2010, after receiving $12 million in funding from venture capital investors, Laplanche developed LendingClub into a full-scale person-to-person lending company.[8][12] By June 2012, the company had raised $100 million in venture capital.[20] LendingClub completed its IPO on December 10, 2014. The stock price increased 56% on its first day of trading.[21]

On May 9, 2016, Laplanche resigned from his position as CEO following an internal investigation that found a violation of the company's business practices had occurred.[22]

Laplanche later entered into an agreement with the SEC to settle the issue with no admission of responsibility.[23]

Upgrade[edit]

Main article: Upgrade, Inc.

In August 2016, Laplanche along with other former Lending Club executives started the fintech company, Upgrade, Inc.[24] The company provides credit and mobile banking products.[25] Upgrade has raised over $122 million in venture capital from several investors.[26]

In November 2021, Upgrade grew 83% in valuation over four months to $6.28 billion after raising $280 million in a Series F funding round led by Coatue Management and DST Global.[27]

Recognition[edit]

Laplanche was named Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2012 BFM Awards.[28] He was the winner of HEC Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2002 and again in 2014.[3][9] and is a member of the Young Presidents' Organization In 2013 he received an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year award for the Northern California region and was a national finalist.[29] In September 2020, Laplanche was named Fintech Executive of the Year by Finovate.[30]

Personal life[edit]

Since April 2015, Laplanche and co-skipper Ryan Breymaier have held the speed record for sailing from Newport, Rhode Island to Bermuda in 23 hours, 9 minutes, and 52 seconds at the average speed of 27 knots.[31][32] Between April 1 and September 22, 2015, Laplanche and the crew of the Lending Club 2, a 105-ft maxi-trimaran, held the speed record for sailing from Cowes to Dinard across the English Channel.[33][34] Between July 15, 2015, and May 17, 2017, Laplanche also held the Transpac record between Long Beach, CA and the Diamond Head lighthouse in Oahu, Hawaii in 3 days, 8 hours, and 9 seconds.[35]

References[edit]

  1. ^ McLannahan, Ben (6 September 2017). "Ousted Lending Club chief boosts volumes at new venture". Financial Times.
  2. ^ O'Brien, Chris (12 December 2014). "France cheers and weeps as Lending Club IPO makes Renaud Laplanche fantastically rich... in the U.S." Venture Beat.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Lending Club prospectus (government filings)" (PDF). Lending Club. August 15, 2011. p. 88. Retrieved April 2, 2012.
  4. ^ a b c d Allen Stern (August 6, 2007). "LendingClub Founder and CEO, Renaud Laplanche – Interview". Center Networks. Archived from the original on March 8, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
  5. ^ a b "Lending Club company leadership". Lending Club. March 28, 2012. Retrieved March 28, 2012.
  6. ^ a b c d "Renaud Laplanche: Biography and interviews". Prendismo. January 15, 2008. Archived from the original on August 8, 2013. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
  7. ^ a b Robert, Virginie (November 30, 2005). "Un champion de l'opiniâtreté". Les Échos. Retrieved April 2, 2012.
  8. ^ a b c d e Barret, Victoria (December 2, 2010). "Making Personal Loans For Fun And Profit". Forbes.
  9. ^ a b c Louis Bedigian (January 4, 2011). "Renaud Laplanche: Best investments, career highlights". Bezinga. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
  10. ^ Nazikian, Franck. "Franck Nazikian". HUFFPOST. Retrieved 8 July 2022.
  11. ^ Gary Stock (June 2005). "List of Business Offices, Tenants, and Companies in the World Trade Center (WTC)". UnBlinking. Retrieved April 2, 2012.
  12. ^ a b c d Ohayon, Ouriel (September 11, 2007). "Entretien avec Renaud Laplanche, CEO de LendingClub". Tech Crunch. Archived from the original on March 23, 2012. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
  13. ^ Mena, Jesus (2004). Homeland Security Techniques & Technologies. Charles River Media. pp. 179–180. ISBN 9781584503286.
  14. ^ "Acquisitions: Oracle and TripleHop". Oracle. June 2005. Retrieved April 2, 2012.
  15. ^ Louis Bedigian (January 3, 2011). "Interview with Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club, Part 1". Bezinga. Retrieved April 17, 2012.
  16. ^ Walker, Rob (May 14, 2009). "Brother, Can You Spare a Loan?". New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  17. ^ Renaud Laplanche, CEO, Lending Club is interviewed by David Kirkpatrick LeWeb Paris 2012, 6 December 2012. Retrieved 29 March 2013
  18. ^ Alan Farnham New Ways to Get a Loan Without Going to the Bank ABC News 6 January 2011. Retrieved 15 March 2013
  19. ^ Lending Club CEO on Getting a Loan Without a Bank CNBC 14 March 2013. Retrieved 16 March, 2103
  20. ^ Sarah McBride Mary Meeker breaks her investment fast Reuters 6 June 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2013
  21. ^ "LendingClub shares debut to 56% stock rise". USA TODAY. 11 December 2014.
  22. ^ Corkery, Michael (May 9, 2016). "Lending Club, Leading Online Lender, Says Its Chief Has Resigned". The New York Times.
  23. ^ "After much drama, LendingClub founder Renaud Laplanche gets a slap on the wrist by the SEC". Retrieved February 12, 2020.
  24. ^ Loizos, Connie (6 April 2017). "Lending Club founder Renaud Laplanche is back with a new startup and $60 million in funding". TechCrunch.
  25. ^ Williams-Grut, Oscar. "Lending Club founder Renaud Laplanche opens up on his 'frustrating' exit and new startup Upgrade". Business Insider.
  26. ^ Popper, Nathaniel (6 April 2017). "Renaud Laplanche, ousted at Lending Club, returns as Rival to his old firm". New York Times.
  27. ^ Son, Hugh (November 16, 2021). "Credit card start-up Upgrade jumps 83% in valuation in just four months to $6.28 billion". CNBC.
  28. ^ "Les lauréats des BFM AWARDS à New York". BFM TV. October 20, 2012. Retrieved October 30, 2012.
  29. ^ "Congratulations to our 2013 Award Recipients". Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  30. ^ Alois, JD. "Finovate: Renaud Laplanche Selected as Fintech Executive of the Year, Lisa Kimball Fintech Woman of the Year".
  31. ^ "Sailing to world records on LendingClub's yacht". Retrieved February 12, 2020.
  32. ^ "LendingClub Shatters Newport To Bermuda Record". Retrieved February 12, 2020.
  33. ^ "Lending Club breaks Cowes-Dinard record - The Daily Sail".
  34. ^ "Phaedo 3 Shatters Cowes-Dinard Record". 23 September 2015.
  35. ^ "Lending Club 2 Shatters TransPac Record". July 20, 2015.
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