Kabbage’s Next Growth Phase

Victoria Treyger, Chief Revenue Officer, Kabbage

When you consider the recent milestones Kabbage has achieved it makes it difficult to think of the fintech lender as a startup. In recent weeks Kabbage surpassed a couple of major milestones comprised of extending $3 billion in funding to 100,000-plus small businesses. More than half of those loans were directed toward existing credit lines. Kabbage also recently priced a $525 million private securitization, which tips the company’s hand on strategy.

After barely letting the paint dry on those achievements, Kabbage already has the next phase of growth in its sights. Victoria Treyger, Kabbage’s chief revenue officer, took some time to discuss those details with deBanked, ranging from serving larger businesses with bigger loans, to expanding its partnerships to providing more niche-based features to customers.

Kabbage is pursuing its growth plans all while performing a confidential search for a new chief technology officer, details for which are expected to unfold in the coming months.

Personal Touch

As chief revenue officer, Treyger oversees the customer experience across both sales and marketing. She describes the Kabbage experience as a cross between a loan and a credit card.

“Ours is a living, breathing product that automatically adjusts for the needs of a business. Once you apply with Kabbage and link your data sources, you never have to do anything again,” said Treyger, pointing to the example of an ad agency. “If you’re an ad agency your highest cash needs are January through March. That’s when the agency’s customers invest their marketing budgets. So the Kabbage credit line automatically adjusts your credit line during your busiest time.”

And while most customers already take out multiple loans per year, with some accessing as many as 10-20, Kabbage is looking to streamline the customer experience even more. “The next stage of Kabbage is about personalization,” said Treyger, pointing to its automated underwriting platform that is connected to over a million live data points about business’ performance and allows the company to understand the cash flow needs of customers across industries.

Kabbage’s sales and customer service teams are also staffed with team members possessing industry vertical expertise ranging from e-commerce to construction.

Partnership Pipeline

At the LendIt USA 2017 event, Kabbage co-founder & CEO Rob Frohwein alluded to the online lender’s plans to reach new territories, details for which were scarce. Treyger shared, however, that Kabbage’s global growth plans are somewhat tied to the company’s pipeline of banking partnerships.

“They are all very large, global banks. I can’t say who they are but there are over half a dozen large relationships that are in the works,” said Treyger, adding that details surrounding those new partnerships will unfold over the next year.

“It’s not that banks don’t want to serve smaller small businesses. But with manual processes they often don’t have the capacity to serve these customers. Kabbage’s automated platform allows them to automate these manual processes and therefore serve more businesses of every size,” said Treyger.

Kabbage already counts as partners household names including Santander, ScotiaBank, and ING, all of which license software from Kabbage. Meanwhile, as big banks are accessing smaller businesses, Kabbage’s growth blueprint includes serving larger ones.

For instance, Kabbage is drawing on its recent $525 million securitization to fund small business loans. The credit facility is larger than previous deals, and for a good reason.

“One reason it is larger is that it was designed to support Kabbage in expanding our product offering to serve larger small businesses, which means two things — larger credit lines of $150,000 to $200,000 and eventually higher; and also longer-term products, not just six-to-12-months but 24, 36 months and different terms. The new larger facilities allows us to expand to serve even more small businesses across all size and funding needs,” said Treyger.

Early Innings

Meanwhile in terms of the small business community’s awareness of fintech and tech-based lenders, Treyger believes the industry is in the early innings. “That’s a great thing. There is a tremendous growth opportunity for the company,” she said.