SocietyOne, Australia's leading Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending company, today announced it has successfully completed an $8.5 million Series A round that includes investments from the newly-launched Australian venture capital fund Reinventure, Munich-based Global Founders Capital (GFC) as well as a private investment from Justin Reizes together with a number of existing investors.

Matt Symons, CEO and co-Founder of SocietyOne said: 'This is a clearly a significant milestone in the development of our business. It's extremely exciting for SocietyOne to be partnering with the Reinventure Fund and GFC. We have found their approach and thinking around innovation and technology disruption to be very aligned with our own. In practical terms this partnership will allow us to accelerate our rate of growth and that's exciting because it means we will be able to offer more borrowers a better deal and give more investors access to attractive fixed income asset classes.'

Hailed as a major step forward in the world of banking, P2P lending is rapidly revolutionising credit markets worldwide, with considerable success in markets such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

'SocietyOne is an excellent investment for the Reinventure Fund. The Peer-to-Peer lending model is showing strong growth globally and SocietyOne has a significant first mover advantage in this market. Founders Matt Symons and Greg Symons have strong track records as entrepreneurs. Further, their unique and proven P2P technology platform not only gives them a real advantage locally, it has significant licensing potential globally and already they have numerous inbound licensing inquiries, ' said Simon Cant, Co-Founder and Joint Managing Director of Reinventure, which also officially launched this week with an investment of $50 million.

'In line with our strategy for the Reinventure Fund, we have already built strong engagement with SocietyOne and are actively exploring potential synergies, ' said Danny Gilligan, Co-Founder and Joint Managing Director of Reinventure.

Oliver Samwer, Founder of Global Founders Capital, noted: 'Online marketplaces have already transformed consumer travel, retail and entertainment. Peer-to-Peer lending is set to completely change the way we think about banking. Matt and the team at SocietyOne are incredibly well positioned to lead this emerging revolution in consumer and business lending.'

As Australia's only active P2P lender, SocietyOne uses a proprietary technology platform to connect creditworthy borrowers looking for better priced credit with investors looking for better rates of return. By cutting out much of the complexity and cost associated with traditional banking, SocietyOne is able to offers consumer and small business loans at attractive rates and provide investors with access to a profitable new asset class.

About SocietyOne

SocietyOne is Australia's leading Peer-to-Peer technology platform where high credit quality borrowers can connect directly with sophisticated investors to get a better deal. The SocietyOne ClearMatchTM platform reduces the cost of originating and managing a consumer or small business loan portfolio. SocietyOne is able to share this operating cost advantage with borrowers and investors. SocietyOne's unsecured personal loan has been recognized as one of the Top 10 most Innovative Banking Products of the year in Australia and its SmartLoan mobile app was awarded 'Best of Show' at Finovate's Asia in November of 2012. To learn more about SocietyOne, go to http://www.societyone.com.au

For further media information about SocietyOne contact:

Abey Malouf
M: 0414 716 100
abey.malouf@societyone.com

About Reinventure Fund

Reinventure is a newly-launched Australian venture capital fund whose largest investor is the Westpac Banking Corporation, one of Australia's largest banking and financial services companies. Reinventure's primary objective is to bring great entrepreneurs together in a partnership opportunity with Westpac. As a result Reinventure believes it can help ventures to scale more rapidly than they could do on their own. Reinventure makes investments from seed through to Series A and up. Co-founded and managed independently by Danny Gilligan and Simon Cant who are also co-investors in the fund, Reinventure will be investing $50 million in Australian technology ventures. To learn more about Reinventure and Westpac's investment go to: http://reinventure.com.au/