LendingPoint Places Seventeenth on Inc. 5000

Today Inc. 5000 released is 2019 list of the fastest growing private companies in America, featuring alternative finance company LendingPoint in seventeenth place after it witnessed a three-year revenue growth of 9,265%. LendingPoint offers consumer loans of up $25,000 and provides financing to merchants, service providers, and medical institutions via its LendingPoint Merchant Solutions program.

This is the Atlanta-based business’s debut on the list and it comes after LendingPoint had a strong twelve months, with it being on track to reach $100 million per month in loan originations by the end of 2019 as well as it being the year the company turned profitable. On top of these, LendingPoint also has plans to expand its operations by hiring an additional 100 people, bringing its Atlanta HQ up to nearly 300 staff members.

In a press release, LendingPoint CEO Tom Burnside claimed that “Our platform saw more originations in 2018 than in 2015, 2016 and 2017 combined [sic], and at the same time our credit performance improved allowing us to facilitate more financing for consumers online and at the point of sale.”

Such growth is attributed by Burnside to LendingPoint’s use of technology. “We started by using data and technology to provide access to credit to underserved [sic], expanded to providing financing options at the point of sale to virtually everyone, and are now working on ways to integrate financing and payments with loyalty using blockchain to protect PII and enhance customer experience.” Such technology makes use of over 10,000 alternative data points, while also using FICO as a weighted factor of their analysis, to determine an applicant’s approval.

“We spend a lot of time cross-tabularizing the data points,” said Mark Lorimer, LendingPoint’s Chief Communications and Public Affairs Officer, when asked about the company’s approach to tech. Confronted by vast amounts of data, Lorimer noted how LendingPoint makes use of its technology to determine the value of different variables, “it really is a matter of taking the data and turning it into information.”

On the subject of LendingPoint’s placement on the Inc 5000, Lorimer told deBanked that the company was “not really surprised” by the news. According to him, his colleagues had been keeping an eye on the performance of those companies who previously placed on the list and were aware of what was required to appear on it, while his CEO has a more exuberant take on it: “It has been quite a ride for the last three years, and we’ve only scratched the surface.”

Brendan Garrett was a Reporter at deBanked.