OnDeck Shows A Path Forward
February 15, 2018
OnDeck announced this week very positive fourth quarter and full year 2017 financial results, including a fourth quarter GAAP net income of $5 million and an expectation for continued margin and profit growth in 2018.
“We worked hard in 2017, not just to achieve profitability, but to strengthen the key fundamentals of our business that drive our success,” OnDeck CFO Howard Katzenberg told deBanked.
This was a very significant milestone for the New York-based online lender who has been challenged by critics in the past on their trajectory. The company also grew in revenue. Net revenue was $152.6 million in 2017, up from $108.9 million the previous year.
Founded in 2007, OnDeck is considered one of the original alternative online lending companies. In 2014, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange and has made more than $8 billion in loans to small businesses.
“[Last year] was a transformative year for OnDeck, marked by our strategic decision to strengthen our financial profile and accelerate our path to profitability,” said CEO Noah Breslow. “Looking ahead to 2018, we expect to drive double digit loan growth due to our strong customer demand, disciplined risk management and focus on scaling responsibly.”
For the fourth quarter of 2017, OnDeck’s loan originations were $546 million, up three percent from the prior quarter. And the credit quality of new originations, measured by both OnDeck Score and personal credit scores improved.
“Since Q2 2017, we have cut out the riskiest parts of our customer base,” Katzenberg told deBanked.
SmartBiz Becomes the Number One Provider of SBA Loans Under $350,000
February 14, 2018
SmartBiz Loans announced today that it was the number one facilitator of SBA 7(a) loans under $350,000 for the 2017 calendar year, surpassing JP Morgan Chase.
“I think the biggest factor [in hitting this milestone] is that we have been laser focused on meeting the needs of small business customers in the U.S.,” SmartBiz CEO Evan Singer told deBanked.
SmartBiz facilitated $329 million in funded SBA 7(a) loans for $350,000 or less for the 2017 calendar year while JP Morgan Chase generated $322 million, putting it in second place. SBA loans (the acronym stands for Small Business Administration) are guaranteed by the U.S. government. Traditional SBA 7(a) loans, which SmartBiz focuses on, are backed by the government 75 to 80 percent, according to Singer, while 7(a) Express loans are only backed 50 percent, making the interest on those loans higher. Previously, SmartBiz was number one in funding SBA 7(a) loans, excluding Express loans. Now it leads in both categories.
The San Francisco-based company was incubated by PayPal and launched in 2010. Originally, it was a consumer credit platform, but then pivoted to the small business space in 2012 and started facilitating SBA loans in 2013, Singer said. The company sold off its consumer business and is now exclusively devoted to facilitating SBA loans, which typically have a repayment term of 10 years for a loan of $350,000 or less.
SmartBiz has made obtaining SBA loans easier for small businesses by making loan underwriting and origination easier for banks. The key has been technology. For instance, Singer said that many banks will not make small business loans for less than $250,000 because it isn’t profitable for them. Banks tell Singer that it takes the same amount of time to underwrite and originate a $200,000 loan as it does for a $2 million loan.
“So what we are focused on is [making] software to help automate the underwriting and origination process for banks so that smaller loans become profitable for them,” Singer said.
So far, this has been working. Singer said the company’s partner banks tell them that they are able to reduce 90 percent of the costs on the retail side when looking at smaller loans. Some of SmartBiz’s partner banks include Celtic Bank in Salt Lake City, UT, First Home Bank in St. Petersburg, FL, and Five Star Bank in Sacramento, CA.
SmartBiz also has an office in Austin, TX and employs a little over 100 people.
Breakout Capital Hires New Chief Marketing Officer
February 14, 2018Small business lender Breakout Capital announced that it has hired James Mendelsohn to be its Chief Marketing Officer. Mendelsohn spent three years working as Chief Marketing Officer at CAN Capital.
“It’s an exciting time to be in the alternative lending space,” Mendelsohn said. “One of the biggest messages that the industry as a whole has to [communicate] is that this is still an underserved market. And that’s part of where Breakout is trying to make a difference – by introducing new products and services so that more small businesses can get access to credit and capital.”
The McLean, VA-based company was founded in 2015 by Carl Fairbank, a former investment banker. The company now has 40 employees.
“James was the perfect fit for where we are in the lifecycle of our business,” Fairbank said. “It’s an enormous addition to the team and sets us up even more favorably for success at faster and safer terms than our peers.”
Breakout Capital offers loans of up to $250,000 to be paid within two years or less. It also provides a product called FactorAdvantage, which helps factoring companies take on new clients. For instance, according to Mendelsohn, if a factor wants to take on a factoring client, but the client has existing MCAs or other loans, Breakout Capital can replace these with a new loan that makes it easier for the factor to advance against the invoices.
“As we continue to emphasize de-risking via a variety of methods, we’ve positioned our most attractive products to scale quickly, such as FactorAdvantage,” Fairbank said, “and James’ arrival couldn’t have come at a more ideal time.”
The majority of Breakout Capital’s leads come from partners including brokers, ISOs and factoring companies, according to Mendelsohn.
Mendelsohn told deBanked that he’s enthusiastic about Breakout Capital’s commitment to innovation.
“The team is very oriented to this mission of how to bring great innovation to the marketplace,” Mendelsohn said. “And I’m excited to get our core products, and new products, into more people’s hands.”
Yalber Obtains $20 Million Credit Facility
February 13, 2018
Small business financing company Yalber has announced the closing of a $20 million credit facility from an institutional credit fund focused on specialty finance and related investments.
Yalber CEO Amir Landsman told deBanked that the money was raised primarily in response to increased demand for capital. The company will use the new credit facility to satisfy customer demand for funding and to continue building out its technology platform.
“This is part of the bigger picture of really looking ahead to the future – to advance technology, marketing and customer service,” Landsman said. “For us, this is just the beginning.”
Yalber was founded in 2007, and until now, it has been self-funded.
The New York-based company derives 90 percent of its leads internally with an in-house sales and marketing team.
“We still work with some ISOs,” Landsman said. “We consider the ISO channel as an important one, but we are quite picky.”
Yalber offers small businesses up to $500,000 and so far it has provided more than 5,000 businesses with over $300 million in working capital.
From its original office in New Jersey, which since moved to New York, Yarber now has offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London. Most of the company’s 30 employees are based in New York.
With an emphasis on making the application process simpler and faster, and all online, what is the value in having multiple offices?
Landsman told deBanked that by better understanding local business environments, they can make better credit decisions. And having a local office also gives merchants more comfort, knowing that they can speak to someone familiar with their area.
In the decade since Yalber started in the MCA business, CTO Nir Goshen noted how much the industry has grown.
“When I started with Google AdWords [in 2007], when I searched ‘Merchant Cash Advance,’ Google said ‘too little traffic.’ Today, it’s one of the most expensive ad words. The only one I can think of that’s more expensive is ‘insurance.’”
Yalber’s $20 million financing was raised by Brean Capital.
Fiserv Sells Part of Its Lending Arm for $395 Million
February 9, 2018
Warburg Pincus LLC, a New York-based global private equity firm, announced this week that it has entered into an agreement to purchase 55 percent of its Lending Solutions business of Fiserv for approximately $395 million.
Fiserv, founded in 1984, is a publicly traded global provider of financial services technology solutions and it will retain a 45 percent equity interest in its lending technology business, Fiserv Lending Solutions.
The Brookfield, WI-based company focuses on automotive lending origination technology, automotive lending servicing technology and process solutions, as well as comprehensive mortgage and consumer loan servicing solutions.
“We are pleased to partner with Fiserv and the Lending Solutions leadership team on this new joint venture, which brings together two leading businesses that provide mission-critical solutions to a growing and attractive client base,” said Jim Neary, Managing Director, Warburg Pincus. “We see meaningful opportunity to further build this business into a leading platform in automotive and mortgage lending technology.”
Fiserv Lending Solutions will continue to be headed by its current president, Bret Leech.
Behalf Secures $150 Million in Debt Capital
February 8, 2018
Behalf, the New York City-based alternative business loan company, obtained $150 million in debt financing this week from a private investment fund managed by Soros Fund Management LLC. Viola Credit also participated in the debt financing.
“This is a significant step forward for Behalf. This funding allows us to expand our fast-growing e-commerce B2B financing platform and enhance our ability to provide the best business terms to customers, in a fraction of the time of a traditional business lender,” said founder and CEO of Behalf, Benjy Feinberg.
The company, founded in 2012, initially started doing MCA only and is now transitioning to offer loans, according to Feinberg.
Behalf’s business model works in the same way as a credit card. The small business customer doesn’t receive money from Behalf. Instead, Behalf pays the vendor of its small business customer directly, and then the customer pays Behalf. Customers pay different rates depending on their risk profile.
As an analogy for the business model, Feinberg told deBanked: “If you give a kid $50,000, he could go to Vegas. If you give the college $50,000, the kid goes and gets an education.”
With Behalf’s transition into loans, the company partnered with FinWise Bank, a Utah-chartered bank, in August of last year. Behalf, which also has an office in Tel Aviv, has a virtual MasterCard feature that allows its customers to use their Behalf credit line to fund purchases across the MasterCard network.
The company has a total headcount of about 90 between its two offices, according to Feinberg.
Responding to Demand, BlueVine Increases Factoring and Business Credit Lines
February 6, 2018Invoice factoring and small business loan company, BlueVine, recently doubled its credit line size for its invoice factoring product up to $5 million. Simultaneously, it has also increased its business line of credit maximum to $200,000, from $150,000.
“The number one [reason for the expansion] has been an increase in demand from our existing customers,” said BlueVine Chief Revenue Officer Eric Sager.
He said they had granted higher lines of credit to some customers who asked for it, and when BlueVine saw success, it decided to make the higher credit available to all customers.
The Redwood City, CA-based company was founded by Eyal Lifshitz in 2013 as a factoring company, but it has since offered small business loans, which Sager told deBanked now accounts for about half of the company’s revenue.
Last year, BlueVine introduced a 12-month line of credit based on monthly payments. Previously, they had only offered a 6-month business line of credit, called Flex Credit, based on weekly payments. Sager that said that many BlueVine customers use the company’s factoring services as well as its credit line offering.
“The reason why [this increase in credit] is so important is because it allows customers to use our line of credit facility not just for working capital…but now for capital expenditures as well,” Sager said.
Many alternative lending companies boast of using sophisticated technology to almost instantly issue loans or credit lines. While Sager said that BlueVine does use sophisticated technology, he said they also use reliable industry standard technologies and that they have a dedicated account management team that customers can reach out to, particularly large ones.
One of Sager’s favorite slogans that he applies to BlueVine is: “Always available, never needed.”
6th Avenue Capital Builds Business Development Team with Veteran Hires
February 6, 20186th Avenue Capital has hired three seasoned employees to its business development team: Mitch Levy, Gary Lockwood and Marc Seidel.
Chief Operating Officer
“We’re putting together a team that I wanted to put together,” said Chief Operating Officer Darren Schulman. “They didn’t come knocking on my door, I knocked on theirs.”
This is part of an expansion of the New York-based company, which launched formally in 2016 and was reorganized in April 2017 with the hiring of Schulman.
Strategy Officer
Mitch Levy, who used to work with Schulman at AmeriMerchant (now known as Capify), will oversee the company’s business origination strategy. Levy joins the company with more than three decades of alternative financing experience across multiple disciplines including origination, underwriting, investing, operations and legal.
“6th Avenue Capital has quickly established itself as a major force in the Merchant Cash Advance business,” Levy said. “In this role, I have a great opportunity to work closely with the leadership team and our strategic partners to help small businesses across the country gain fast and efficient access to capital in times of immediate need.”
Business Development Manager
Gary Lockwood, who also worked with Schulman at Capify, joins 6th Avenue Capital as Business Development Manager. He built and led a successful consulting business where he opened several business financing sales offices. Lockwood was a Senior Vice President of Partnerships at Fundation and worked at Capify as Director of Business Development with responsibility for onboarding, managing and training broker and partner groups.
VP Business Development
Schulman has never worked with Marc Seidel, but told deBanked that he knew of him and came highly recommended by Levy. Seidel will be 6th Avenue Capital’s Vice President of Business Development. Previously, Seidel spent more than 10 years working at Bizfi, where he started his career in the alternative financing industry as a Risk Analyst. He then worked his way up to a Senior Underwriter position and landed a business development role where he was responsible for managing relationships with brokers and driving deal demand.
Chief Executive Officer
“Adding these industry veterans in business development will undoubtedly advance our mission to expand our existing network of ISOs and other strategic partners to ensure small businesses have access to capital in hours,” said 6th Avenue Capital CEO Christine Chang.
Schulman takes pride in assembling a veteran team that does the right thing by clients, he said.
“We don’t want to give merchants more money than they can afford,” he said.
He said the the company now employs 20 and is growing.
“We’re looking to form long-term relationships with brokers and merchants and we’ve been successful at getting merchants to refer us to other merchants.”
