Articles by Press Release
Fintech Startup BlueVine Raises $49 Million in Series D Funding
December 14, 2016- The company has provided more than $200M in financing to thousands of businesses
- In response to customer demand BlueVine is increasing credit lines to $2 million for invoice factoring and $100,000 for business lines of credit
- Company is expanding strategic relationships with partners like Intuit
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (December 14, 2016) BlueVine, a leading online provider of everyday financing to small businesses, announced today it has closed $49 million in funding. The Series D funding round was led by existing investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83North, Citi Ventures, Rakuten FinTech Fund and Silicon Valley Bank.
Since launching in March 2014, BlueVine’s cloud-based financing solutions have helped thousands of small businesses obtain quick, easy access to the funds they need to purchase inventory, cover expenses and expand operations.
We are very proud of all we’ve accomplished in 2016 and excited to continue on our incredible growth trajectory, said Eyal Lifshitz, CEO and founder of BlueVine. BlueVine is delivering unprecedented ease and convenience to meet SMB owners¹ financing needs and help them achieve their goals.
This financing will support BlueVine’s rapid growth as it expands its team and range of offerings. BlueVine has already funded more than $200 million in working capital for SMBs and is on track to fund more than $500 million in working capital during 2017.
This team continues to push the pace of innovation to deliver best-in-class everyday financing products, said Yoni Cheifetz of Lightspeed Venture Partners. We are delighted to have supported BlueVine’s journey to date and thrilled to enable them to bring their vision to thousands more SMBs across the country.
BlueVine’s business line of credit has proven to be very popular with QuickBooks users, said Rania Succar, business leader of QuickBooks Financing. It fills a critical part of the QuickBooks Financing portfolio and allows us to extend credit to younger businesses. We are excited about expanding our partnership to serve even more QuickBooks SMBs with BlueVine’s business line of credit.
BlueVine also announced it has once again increased its maximum credit lines based on client demand:
- For invoice factoring the maximum credit limit has been increased from $250,000 to $2,000,000
- For the business line of credit the maximum credit limit has been increased from $50,000 to $100,000
BlueVine offers credit lines starting at $5,000 for a business line of credit and $20,000 for invoice factoring.
About BlueVine
BlueVine offers small businesses financing solutions to access the funds they need to purchase inventory, cover expenses or expand operations. BlueVine was the first factoring company to develop a fully online, cloud-based platform for invoice factoring, enabling rapid advances on outstanding invoices due in 7-90 days and bringing a 4,000-year-old industry into the digital age. BlueVine also offers Flex Credit, an on-demand, revolving line of credit through the same online platform. With BlueVine, business owners can focus on growing their business instead of worrying about their bank account. BlueVine is funded by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Citi Ventures, 83North, Correlation Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Rakuten Fintech Fund and other private investors.
About Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners is an early stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 300 companies globally. The Firm currently manages over $4 billion of committed capital and invests in the U.S. and internationally, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India and China. www.lsvp.com
Press Contact
Amberly Asay
BlueVine Public Relations
801-461-9776
bluevine@methodcommunications.com
Knight Capital Funding Announces New Chief Data Scientist, Alex Kondratyev
December 11, 2016MIAMI, Dec. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Knight Capital Funding, a financial services company dedicated to delivering working capital to small and medium sized businesses in an efficient and transparent manner, announced the hiring of Alex Kondratyev as its Chief Data Scientist.
Kondratyev had been providing financial consulting to Knight Capital prior to accepting the role of Chief Data Scientist. He will be working out of Knight Capital’s new Silicon Valley office. Prior to joining Knight Capital, Kondratyev worked at Cadence Design Systems, a multinational electronic design automation software and engineering services company, as a senior software Architect. At Cadence he led and managed the scheduling group, which was responsible for a kernel of C-to-Silicon synthesis that involves about 20 man-years of development with more than 100,000 lines of C++ code.
“Alex will be integral to our data modeling in all aspects of our business. His expertise will play a critical role in our underwriting models, giving us the enhanced capabilities to mitigate potential fraud, while also increasing our approval ability to get working capital in the hands of small and medium sized businesses,” said Rich Ferrante, CFO at Knight Capital.
“I was intrigued by the rapid growth and unique technology platform at Knight Capital,” said Kondratyev. “I am very happy to have joined and to be a part of the largest funding and revenue months in the Company’s history, which gives us many data points to enhance the prediction power of our models.”
Kondratyev has been in software design his whole career with a specialization in complex algorithms. He began his career as a professor in Logic Design and Foundations of programming. He then joined Cadence Design Systems where he was a founder of C-to-Silicon synthesis group. Later he moved to Xilinx Inc. and worked as Principal engineer before joining Knight Capital. Kondratyev has a Master’s in Computer Science as well as a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the esteemed Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University in Russia. He holds seven U.S. patents, more than 50 Russian patents, and is co-author of two monographs on asynchronous synthesis with more than 120 conference and journal publications.
About Knight Capital, LLC
Founded in 2013 and with offices in New York, Silicon Valley, Florida, India and Dominican Republic, Knight is a leading financial technology company that provides customized financing solutions to small and medium size businesses in the United States. Knight leverages its leading technology platform to provide solutions to small and medium sized business owners with greater speed and flexibility than in the marketplace. Visit www.knightcapitalfunding.com to learn more.
SOURCE Knight Capital Funding
OnDeck Announces New $200 Million Revolving Credit Facility with Credit Suisse
December 9, 2016
NEW YORK, Dec. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — OnDeck® (NYSE: ONDK), the leader in online lending for small business, announced today the closing of a $200 million asset-backed revolving debt facility with Credit Suisse.
In addition to its other funding sources, OnDeck may now obtain funding under the new credit facility with Credit Suisse, subject to customary borrowing conditions, by accessing $125 million of committed capacity and an additional $75 million of capacity available at the discretion of the lenders.
“OnDeck has emerged as a leading provider of growth capital to small businesses around the country,” said Jon-Claude Zucconi, Managing Director, Credit Suisse. “The team’s innovative vision and commitment to financing is vital to expansion and growth in the small business community.”
Under the facility, loans will be made to Prime OnDeck Receivable Trust II, LLC, or PORT II, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OnDeck, to finance PORT II’s purchase of small business loans from OnDeck. The revolving pool of small business loans purchased by PORT II serves as collateral under the facility. OnDeck is acting as the servicer for such small business loans. The Class A Loans under the facility were rated by DBRS, Inc.
OnDeck intends to initially use a portion of this facility, together with other available funds, to optionally prepay in full without penalty or premium, the existing $100 million Prime OnDeck Receivable Trust, LLC facility which was scheduled to expire in June 2017. As a result, OnDeck will benefit from obtaining additional funding capacity through December 2018.
“This transaction marks a continuation of our financing strategy to diversify funding sources, extend debt maturities, and create additional funding capacity to pave the way for future loan growth,” said Howard Katzenberg, Chief Financial Officer, OnDeck. “We are pleased to have Credit Suisse, a leading global financial institution, support OnDeck in our mission to power the growth of small business through lending technology and innovation.”
About OnDeck
OnDeck (NYSE: ONDK) is the leader in online small business lending. Since 2007, the company has powered Main Street’s growth through advanced lending technology and a constant dedication to customer service. OnDeck’s proprietary credit scoring system – the OnDeck Score® – leverages advanced analytics, enabling OnDeck to make real-time lending decisions and deliver capital to small businesses in as little as 24 hours. OnDeck offers business owners a complete financing solution, including the online lending industry’s widest range of term loans and lines of credit. To date, the company has deployed over $5 billion to more than 60,000 customers in 700 different industries across the United States, Canada, and Australia. OnDeck has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and operates the educational small business financing website BusinessLoans.com.
For more information, please visit www.ondeck.com.
About Credit Ratings
Credit ratings are opinions of the relevant rating agency. They are not facts and are not opinions of OnDeck. They are not recommendations to purchase, sell or hold any securities and can be changed or withdrawn at any time.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other legal authority. Forward-looking statements include statements about the intended use of proceeds from the new facility and expected optional repayment in full of the existing facility, the extension of debt maturities and the availability of additional funding capacity, all of which are dependent upon compliance with the borrowing and other conditions of the new facility, as well as information concerning OnDeck’s business plans and objectives and financing plans including future loan growth. Forward-looking statements can also be identified by words such as “will,” “enables,” “expects”, “may,” “allows,” “continues,” “believes,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “estimates” or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. They are based only on OnDeck’s current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of its business, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Moreover, OnDeck does not assume responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of forward-looking statements. As such, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, changes in circumstances, known and unknown risks and other factors that are difficult to predict and in many cases outside OnDeck’s control.
As a result, you should not rely on any forward-looking statements. OnDeck’s expected results may not be achieved, and actual results may differ materially from OnDeck’s expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from OnDeck’s forward-looking statements are the risks that OnDeck may not be able to manage its anticipated or actual growth effectively, that its credit models do not adequately identify potential risks, and other risks, including those under the heading “Risk Factors” in OnDeck’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2016 and in other documents that OnDeck files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, from time to time which are available on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. OnDeck undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this press release to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in OnDeck’s expectations, except as required by law.
OnDeck, the OnDeck logo and OnDeck Score are trademarks of On Deck Capital, Inc.
Logo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150812/257781LOGO
SOURCE On Deck Capital, Inc.
SmartBiz Loans Ranked Number One Provider of Traditional SBA 7(a) Loans Under $350,000
December 5, 2016SAN FRANCISCO, CA – December 5, 2016 – SmartBiz Loans, the first SBA marketplace and bank-enabling technology platform, has ranked as the number one provider of non-Express, SBA 7(a) loans under $350,000 for the 2016 government fiscal year. SmartBiz also ranked number five among providers of under $350,000 traditional SBA 7(a) and Express 7(a) loans combined.
“SmartBiz’s success in this year’s SBA 7(a) ranking demonstrates how technology can support banks in meeting the needs of small businesses,” said Evan Singer, CEO of SmartBiz Loans. “SmartBiz is committed to creating the leading marketplace for both banks and small business owners, by matching small business owners with the bank best suited to their needs and enabling a higher percentage of SBA loans to be approved.”
SmartBiz generated $200 million in funded SBA 7(a) loans through its bank lending partners, which helped them earn the top spot. The data used is based on SBA lending data released in November, reflecting its 2016 fiscal year which ended on Sept. 30. Wells Fargo Bank, which was ranked just below SmartBiz, generated $155 million in funded non-Express SBA 7(a) loans under $350,000. This is the first time a technology platform and marketplace has achieved the number one position in SBA’s ranking of 7(a) loans.
“Small businesses are the driving force of the economy,” said Ann Marie Mehlum, retired Associate Administrator, Office of Capital Access, U.S. Small Business Administration. “By supporting them, the SBA and lending partners like SmartBiz are investing in the economy as a whole.”
SmartBiz is revolutionizing SBA lending. Its marketplace helps increase approval rates by automatically directing businesses to the right lender, while its advanced software streamlines the SBA loan application, underwriting and origination process. In this way, SmartBiz fills a critical gap in the small business loan market and enables small businesses nationwide to grow without settling for the sky-high rates of alternative online lenders or undergoing the typically slow and tedious traditional bank process.
About SmartBiz Loans
SmartBiz Loans is a unique combination of an online SBA loan marketplace and a bank enabling technology platform. The company’s online software provides SBA preferred lenders customized and automated origination, underwriting and documentation, making approval and funding fast and easy. Sophisticated algorithmic sorting in the SmartBiz marketplace also enables higher approval rates for small businesses because the right applications are automatically directed to the right bank. SmartBiz is based in San Francisco and was founded in 2009 by a team of experienced financial services entrepreneurs with backing from leading venture capital firms including Investor Growth Capital, Venrock, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, and SoftTech VC. Learn more at www.smartbizloans.com.
Total Merchant Resources Launches Wholesale Funding Division, Secures $20 Million in Private Equity
December 1, 2016Dec 2, 2016 / Piscataway, NJ – An old name in the industry is now a new kid on the block with wholesale. Total Merchant Resources in Piscataway, NJ announced today that it is finished with a first round of funding and has secured $20 million in private equity. This new designation allows TMR to quickly and easily service ISO’s from coast to coast via its wholesale funding division, TMRNOW.
“We are thrilled to open our very successful funding platform to the entire industry. In addition, TMR is now perfectly positioned to do business in California since we are one of the few in this space to obtain a California lending license.” said TMR Co-Founder and CEO Jason Reddish.
Reddish and co-founder Val Pinkhasov, who were featured on CNBC’s ‘Shark Tank’, were among the very first business lenders to enter this space. They are a respected name in the industry and, thanks to their major prime time TV appearance, have brought attention to this underutilized model for businesses to obtain working capital.
“Funding on the retail side all these years, we understand where funders have failed in the past and being that our money is completely private, we have no one to answer to in regards to underwriting. We create our own programs and common sense pricing. We look forward to being a name that ISO’s can trust on every level and making common sense, in house decisions” says Val Pinkhasov President of TMR.
Both Reddish and Pinkhasov have several decades of finance experience and have helped thousands of businesses achieve their goals. They are now excited, in a properly regulated fashion, to do so in on the wholesale side. Please visit TMRNOW.COM for more information.
For more information call Gary Lane (212) 220 9872.
CapFundNow Launches Funding Platform for ISOs and Agents
November 27, 2016Hauppauge, NY – November 28, 2016 – CapFundNow.com has launched an online platform and portal that is bringing Funders and their offers direct to the ISO and Agent. This concept is taking the funding industry by storm. The platform was created to help streamline the funding industry by allowing the ISO and Agent to submit a deal through an online platform and have the industry’s top funders make offers through the portal.
According to managing partner Elliott Levine, “you spend countless hours submitting deals to funders through multiple platforms and email addresses. You become exhausted and it’s grueling wasting valuable time submitting deals to multiple funders. It’s impossible to keep up to date with each funder’s niche and guidelines as they can be revised and modified daily. CapFundNow was designed specifically with the ISO community in mind, giving them large-scale access to the industry’s best funders with a simple one-click platform. Our intention was to allow a seamless transaction approach from ISO to funder, allowing them to communicate directly while retaining their full commission.”
Why spend your valuable time submitting deals to multiple funders when CapFundNow will do it for you? CapFundNow has teamed up with the industry’s best to bring you a seamless funding experience. CapFundNow will submit your deals instantly to the industry’s top funders allowing them to compete for your business. You will have the capacity to review and compare multiple offers within the portal. This will allow you to concentrate on the most viable part of your business; sales and servicing your clients. CapFundNow will do the rest by bringing the funders and offers direct to you.
CapFundNow is a completely free service exclusive to the ISO and Agent. You receive the same commission as if you were working hand in hand with the funder. Your full commission is paid directly from the Funder.
Contact Information
CapFundNow – Where Funders Compete!!
Clientservices@capfundnow.com
300 Wheeler Rd.
Hauppauge, NY 11788
(888) 285-6665
i2B Capital Provides $4 Million Revolving Line of Credit to CFG Merchant Solutions
November 8, 2016NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–i2B Capital (www.i2bcap.com), a provider of direct financing to niche-market financial entrepreneurs, is pleased to announce the closing of a $4 million asset-based revolving line of credit with an accordion to $6 million with CFG Merchant Solutions (CFGMS). CFGMS is a privately owned and operated specialty finance company focused on providing working capital to small and mid-sized businesses (Merchants) in the U.S. that are historically underserved by traditional financial institutions.
Said Mr. Larry L. Curran II, CEO of i2B Capital, “CFGMS gave us the perfect opportunity to apply asset-based lending principals to non-traditional receivable assets in an early stage specialty finance company. CFGMS is a new division of an established finance business with traditional bank financing; however, these receivable assets were excluded from the existing borrowing base. The CFGMS management team is seasoned, backed by private equity, and enabled with technology—exactly what we look for in our target customer. Additionally, they have grown their financed receivables more than 500% since beginning the process.”
Barbara Anderson, Chief Operating Officer at i2B Capital commented, “Our goal over the initial 18-month funding commitment is to prepare CFGMS for more traditional institutional financing in the future. To accomplish that we will provide the growth capital along with our commercial lending expertise to help them prepare for the disciplined reporting requirements and credit processes at the next level.”
William Gallagher, President of CFGMS said, “Obtaining an asset-based loan against our non-traditional asset class within our first year of operation is instrumental in allowing us to execute on our growth strategy, and achieve some very aggressive portfolio and revenue targets. We had to work through several considerations with i2B due to the age and size of the portfolio, but through mutual collaboration we were able to put in place a facility that will enable us to take our business to the next level.”
CFGMS is a subsidiary of CapFlow Funding Group, a commercial finance company that offers an array of products such as factoring, purchase order finance, and asset-based loans. Both companies are headquartered in Rutherford, New Jersey. CFGMS with additional offices in New York City is a direct funder providing working capital to small businesses. They are entrepreneurs who understand first-hand the challenges of acquiring flexible and timely financing. CFGMS combines proprietary analytics and technology, with common sense underwriting to provide fast and efficient access to capital. Programs include Small Business Advance, Merchant Cash Advance, and Invoice Factoring. For more information about CFGMS contact William Gallagher at wgallagher@cfgms.com or visit www.cfgmerchantsolutions.com.
i2B Capital is headquartered in Fort Collins, Colorado with offices in Herndon, Virginia. The company provides senior debt and direct asset investments for growth capital to qualifying entrepreneurs and equity-backed emerging specialty finance companies throughout the United States. For more information about i2B Capital contact Barbara Anderson at 703-871-3993 or banderson@i2bcap.com, or visit www.i2bcap.com.
Contacts
i2B Capital
Barbara Anderson, 703-871-3993
banderson@i2bcap.com
Expansion Capital Group Announces New Executive Management Team
October 25, 2016SIOUX FALLS, S.D., October 25, 2016 – Expansion Capital Group (ECG), a provider of small business loans, is pleased to announce several changes to its executive management team.
Effective immediately, Mr. Vincent Ney (ECG’s majority shareholder) is CEO and will focus on further developing the foundation built by the Expansion Capital team. In addition to an impressive combination of leadership and operational experience, Mr. Ney brings a passion for building financial services businesses with a focus on meeting the needs of its strategic partners and its customers. Most recently, he was involved in the online consumer lending sector where he was instrumental in building a business to $100 million in revenue.
As part of Mr. Ney’s early initiatives, Expansion Capital Group has begun testing and implementing new loan term and pricing options to provide broader and more advantageous solutions for borrowers.
Additionally, Mr. Marc Helman has joined Expansion Capital Group as Director of Strategic Partnerships. In this role, Mr. Helman is responsible for driving originations across the Company’s Funding Partner and Partnership channels. Before joining ECG, Mr. Helman spent over ten years in investment banking and venture capital, providing financing to both private and publicly traded small businesses. Mr. Helman stated, “I am incredibly excited to join Expansion Capital Group’s growing team. As our product offerings and platform continue to expand, we look forward to serving the capital needs of a wider variety of small businesses.”
Mr. Ney and Mr. Helman add to other members of the executive team that joined earlier in 2016. Mr. Herk Christie joined ECG’s operations team in March after experience and tenure with Resurgent Capital Services and Capital One. Mr. Tim Mages joined in February as CFO to assist ECG with its financial analysis and Capital Markets initiatives.
Dusty Wasmund, ECG’s VP of Business Development and Channel Partnerships, stated “During the past six months, ECG has broadened its executive management team to build a sustainable business that enables small business owners to access capital quickly to capitalize on their objectives. Our combined team brings a variety of experiences and perspectives to better serve our customer’s needs. This team has collaborated extensively during the past 60 days to strategically bring two new product innovations to market, which provide our borrowers greater financing options tailored to their specific needs. I am very excited about our revised positioning and look forward to working with many of our strategic partners during 2017 as we continue to grow our platform.”
As part of these changes, ECG also recently executed a partial equity recapitalization by ECG’s existing two family office investors. This additional equity, along with its $25 million credit facility closed in partnership with Northlight Financial and Bastion Management during the fourth quarter of 2015, provides ECG with enhanced capital resources to facilitate future growth. With this additional equity base and more flexible product alternatives, ECG will look to significantly expand its origination partners and loan volume.
About Expansion Capital Group:
Since 2013, Expansion Capital Group has provided over 5,000 small businesses with capital exceeding $130 million. Expansion Capital Group has developed a platform based on data aggregation and predictive modeling, which enables it to service this target market cost-effectively. Expansion Capital Group uses a broad array of both traditional and nontraditional data sources to predict individual performance and cash flow of each small business.
For general inquiries, please contact:
Tim Mages
CFO
(605) 877-3910
For sales, lead generation, or channel partner inquiries, please contact:
Mr. Dusty Wasmund
VP of Sales and Channel Partnerships
(605) 351-5833
Mr. Marc Helman
Director of Strategic Partnerships
(605) 681-6400
