By Ianthe Jeanne Dugan, Corrie Driebusch and Telis Demos 

Shares of Lending Club Corp surged 56% from their initial public offering price Thursday--a strong debut for the first publicly traded peer-to-peer lending company.

That first-day pop left Lending Club at a valuation more in line with high-tech firms than the banks and other financial companies it is seeking to displace.

On Wednesday, Lending Club sold 58 million shares for $15 apiece, above the $12 to $14 a share range that was outlined in a filing with regulators.

Thursday morning, more than 100 employees, directors, investors and other guests cheered on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as shares opened at $24.75. The stock quickly rose to a high of $25.44 and later closed at $23.43.

In the crowd, all wearing matching red jackets, were founder and Chief Executive Renaud Laplanche and Morgan Stanley's former chief executive, John Mack, who is on Lending Club's board.

Lending Club connects borrowers with lenders in an online marketplace for a fee; it doesn't actually lend any money itself. The IPO has generated buzz particularly among technology investors, according to money managers, even as the company faces a number of risks, including competition from banks and other startups, rising interest rates and regulatory hurdles.

The rise in Lending Club shares gave the company a market capitalization of $8.5 billion.

At Thursday's closing share price, Lending Club trades at a market value that is more than 50 times what underwriting bank analysts project for its earnings in 2017, according to people familiar with the deal.

That is in line with where smaller but rapidly growing Internet companies, such as Zillow Inc. and Yelp Inc., trade, according to FactSet. It is roughly double the valuation at which other firms that facilitate financial transactions, such as Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., currently trade.

A multiple akin to that of an Internet stock is "a reflection of who we are and how we operate," said Mr. Laplanche, in an interview Thursday. "We run an online marketplace, and you see the same network effects you see on Amazon, Zillow, LinkedIn, Facebook, Alibaba. The service we deliver is a financial product, but we essentially operate as an online marketplace."

Before the IPO started trading, it was greeted with a "buy" recommendation from stock analyst Mark Palmer at brokerage firm BTIG.

Mr. Palmer said BTIG believes Lending Club "is poised to grow rapidly by taking advantage of failure of traditional banks to meet the credit needs of consumers and small businesses." Still, Mr. Palmer put a $19 12-month price target on the stock.

At a breakfast that took place before Mr. Laplanche rang the opening bell at the NYSE, Lending Club's guests at gathered in the exchange's board room and listened to speeches by some board members, including former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

Lending Club is among the biggest in a growing number of peer-to-peer lenders, and its success has emboldened others in the field.

Still, the company's future lies very much with Wall Street. For one, in order to generate big volumes of new loans from borrowers, Lending Club has plans to offer its own technology directly to banks, including small community banks that need consumer loans to fulfill regulatory quotas.

"We are partnering already with a number of banks and will continue to do so in the future," Mr. Laplanche said. "It is very hard for banks to lower their operating costs."

The highly anticipated deal raised $870 million for the company before taking account of the overallotment option, which gives underwriters the opportunity to sell additional shares under certain circumstances.

The deal was led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Citigroup.

Also making its U.S. stock-market debut Thursday was Momo Inc, a location-based social network backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The Chinese company's shares closed 26% above its IPO price at $17.02.

Write to Corrie Driebusch at corrie.driebusch@wsj.com, Ianthe Jeanne Dugan at ianthe.dugan@wsj.com and Telis Demos at telis.demos@wsj.com

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