Direct lending to established local businesses with trustworthy owners has historically provided very attractive returns.

“Direct lending to established local businesses with
trustworthy owners has historically provided very
                attractive returns.”

Quick Facts:
      Brendan Ross is the founder and president of Los Angeles-based Direct Lending
       Investments, LLC, the general partner of a small business loan fund that purchases loans
       through online/peer-to-peer lending platforms
      For press inquiries, contact evelyn@leverage-pr.com to submit questions or schedule an
       interview

Executive Biography

                                  Brendan Ross is the president of Direct Lending Investments
                                  LLC, the general partner of a short-term, high-yield small
                                  business loan fund. An early expert in peer-to-peer lending,
                                  Brendan spoke at the 2013 LendIt Conference, the largest
                                  peer-to-peer lending conference in the country. Previously,
                                  Brendan was a turnaround CEO and ran a number of
                                  companies, including ReserveAmerica, the world's largest
                                  outdoor recreation reservation company.

                                    Brendan’s insights into emerging alternative asset classes
                                    have earned him a reputation for forward-thinking
                                    investment strategies. Seeing the opportunity in direct
                                    lending to healthy small businesses that are unable to secure
                                    traditional financing, he founded Direct Lending Investments
to offer clients access to this new asset class. He has appeared in the Wall Street Journal,
Seeking Alpha, Forbes, FOX Business and many other outlets.

Fund Investment Strategy
The Direct Lending Income Fund (“The Fund”) buys loans directly from high-yield business
lenders with whom it has negotiated long-term loan acquisition and servicing relationships, and
borrowers repay daily or weekly via bank account direct debit. Because these underserved
borrowers overpay for credit, downside risk protection is substantial: defaults of 22 percent
could be sustained without invading investor principal, yet typical default rates are 6 percent.

                                     www.dirlend.com

The Fund was engineered to take advantage of the 15-year decline in bank small business
lending (loans of less than $1 million). This opportunity is sustainable and continues to grow.

Areas of Expertise & Selected Quotes:
       Peer-to-peer (p2p) lending and small business financing
       Alternative assets, especially private/consumer debt; hedge funds
       P2P platforms, including Lending Club, Prosper, Dealstruck, IOU Central and Quarterspot

“This reboot of private credit is being led by online lenders that are making high-yield, short-
term, consumer and business loans available for direct investment, either in separately
managed accounts or in simple, transparent pooled vehicles such as limited partnerships (LPs).”
–from his op-ed “Using Private Credit to Mitigate Portfolio Risk”

“Online lending is ‘nothing less than the vanguard of Silicon Valley’s attack on New York,
Charlotte and other bastions of retail lending. Silicon Valley has created a bank without a
balance sheet. Online lenders market financial products, underwrite borrowers and service
loans, all without taking a penny of balance-sheet risk.’”—Interview with FINalternatives

FAQs:

Why does the Fund focus on small business loans? The Fund achieves its returns though high
risk-adjusted yields from small business loans. The fact is, small businesses overpay for credit.
With few borrowing options, they pay 20 percent-plus interest rates, yet default at only 6
percent. This huge spread is why small business lending is attractive.
Where does the Fund purchase loans? Loans are purchased from online lenders including
IOUCentral, QuarterSpot, Dealstruck and Biz2Credit.
What criteria are used to select the loans? We use more than 300 data points including six-
month historical bank statements (ability to pay) and business owner’s personal credit
(willingness to pay). Average time in business is 12.1 years, so we are typically loaning to
companies that have survived previous recessions.
What do the loans look like? $10,000 to $100,000 loans for six to 12 months. They are paid
back either daily or weekly via automatic ACH withdrawals from the borrower’s bank account.
Average loan size is about $41,000.

                                      www.dirlend.com

Who are the borrowers? Main street businesses. 25 percent are retail store, 20 percent are
medical (doctors and dentists) and 15 percent are restaurants and hotels. There is a pie chart
on the Fact Sheet.
What has made this investment possible now? Software now exists that enables the Fund and
its investors to see real-time portfolio performance. Fund management knows what is
happening to every loan every day, and we can show it directly to investors at any time.
Why do these businesses pay 20-30 percent interest rates? These are good rates. Before
online lenders, many main street businesses relied on credit card cash advances, with rates of
70 percent-plus. We are skimming the cream of these borrowers, and they consider our loans
to be very reasonable.
Why don’t they get SBA loans instead? These are truly small businesses and not in the same
category of borrower as most SBA-backed loans. The average SBA loan in 2012 was $337,000.
The SBA doesn’t make loans, it guarantees loans made by banks, and most banks don’t loan to
true small businesses. They are too small for banks to bother with.
What if there is another huge recession? The loans are underwritten to minimize defaults by
lending to established business with an average tenure of 12.1 years. While defaults will
increase during a recession, we believe that scenarios under which they rise to 22 percent,
which would produce a break-even return, are unlikely.

Selected Interviews and Published Articles:
      Private Wealth Magazine: “Banking on Small Business,” 3/7/2014
      Credit.com/Yahoo! Finance: “How Much Money Can My Business Borrow?” 3/4/2014
      American Banker: “P2P Lending: 2B or not 2B?” 2/25/2014
      FINalternatives: “After Breakout Year, Peer-to-Peer Lending Still Evolving,” 1/23/2014
      GARP/Risk News: “Using Private Credit to Mitigate Portfolio Risk,” [contributing article]
       1/17/2014
      Los Angeles Business Journal: “Investment Fund Banks on Mom, Pop,” 12/2/2013
      Seeking Alpha: “Peer-to-Peer Lending’s Threat to Bank Earnings,” [contributing article]
       11/21/2013
      VIDEO—FOX Business, Willis Report: “How Investors Can Gain from Peer-to-Peer
       Lending,” 6/3/2013

                                     www.dirlend.com

Press Releases:

      2/24/2014: “Dealstruck Selected by Peer-to-Peer Loan Fund Direct Lending Investments
       for Investment in Small Business Loans”

Contact Information
1-213-479-2879

Direct Lending Investments, LLC
355 S Grand Ave, Suite 2450
Los Angeles, CA 90071

        twitter.com/brendan_ross

        facebook.com/dirlend

       linkedin.com/in/brendanross

Media Contact:
Evelyn Cashen

Account Manager at Leverage PR

evelyn@leverage-pr.com

(512) 502-5833

             Full Fund fact sheet available upon request to maria@dirlend.com.

                                   www.dirlend.com