WeFinance Offers a Crowdfunded Alternative to Student Loans and More

WeFinance, launching today, is the latest startup to use a combination of technology and crowdfunding in order to offer borrowers lower interest rates on loans, while reducing lenders’ risk. The new peer-to-peer lending platform operates something like a Kickstarter for personal loans – largely those in the range of $10,000 to $20,000, and many of which are being used to help borrowers fund their educational expenses, including tuitions, bootcamps, financial support during unpaid internships, and more.

Founded in early 2014, the idea for the site comes from co-founder and CEO Eric Mayefsky, who previously spent three-and-a-half years at Facebook as a product manager focused on ads optimization, infrastructure and stability. He explains that, while at the company, he began to loan his friends money directly on good terms, in order to save them from the otherwise “exorbitant rates” they would have to pay on that debt.