Industry News
United Capital Source CEO Jared Weitz Appeared on Fox News
April 21, 2020This week, Jared Weitz, CEO of United Capital Source, appeared on Fox News to talk about the PPP, EIDL, and small business lending. Video below:
BFS Capital Hires Peter Ng as CRO
March 20, 2020
Last week BFS Capital announced that it has appointed Peter Ng as Chief Revenue Officer. Coming from BlackBerry, where he served as Senior Director of Global Alliances and Business Development, Ng will be responsible for leading all revenue-related functions as well as overseeing the development of partnerships.
“I’ve had the privilege of working with Peter over the past few years and have always been impressed with his unique ability to drive business growth through new, innovative and diverse channels,” CEO Mark Ruddock said. “BFS continues to develop our executive talent pool as we pursue our mission of reimagining small business financial services, and we are particularly thrilled to have him join our leadership team.”
At BlackBerry, Ng lead the company’s global Independent Software Vendor partnerships program. Here Ng oversaw the creation of new partnerships and revenue streams with the launch of BlackBerry’s ISV Affiliate program as well as the addition of over 120 partners in less than three years. Ng was also instrumental in starting up the BlackBerry World mobile app store. He joined BlackBerry after the Canadian multinational acquired Viigo, where Ng was Vice President of Sales and Services.
“I’m excited to accept the role as Chief Revenue Officer,” Ng said in a statement. “This will be the third opportunity I’ve had to work with Mark Ruddock, who is truly a transformational leader. Having built an app ecosystem from scratch, I see a similar opportunity to create one for the small business owner. I’m looking forward to bringing my extensive global partnership experience and passion for startups to BFS Capital to help grow and diversify sales channels. The BFS Capital platform, combined with a robust partner ecosystem, will unlock exciting new financial products and services for underserved small businesses and drive an unparalleled customer experience.”
OnDeck’s Chief Accounting Officer is Leaving The Company
March 16, 2020On March 9th, OnDeck filed a disclosure with the SEC that their Chief Accounting Officer, Nicholas Sinigaglia, would be leaving the company on May 1st. Sinigaglia was with the company for more than 5 years.
OnDeck said it was doing this as part of changes it had made to streamline its finance organization.
Shares of OnDeck have dropped by more than 50% since that time, likely wrought by the sudden economic disruption.
Funding Metrics Deal Puts Them On The Map
March 4, 2020
A new $100 million revolving credit facility is poised to give a big boost to small business funding provider Funding Metrics. The company operates the Lendini and QuickFix Capital brands, and this new credit facility comes as the company seeks to increase its base of more than 9,500 small businesses served so far.
“We now have the money to grow over all aspects of that spectrum,” President Jim Carnes said. Since 2014, the company has provided more than $500 million dollars of funding to small businesses in a variety of industries, including healthcare, real estate, construction, restaurants and others.
The $100 million worth of revolving credit comes from what the company called a “a multi-billion dollar institutional credit fund,” with Brean Capital serving as Funding Metrics’ exclusive financial advisor for the transaction. The new credit line as well as a newly developed website and streamlined funding process will allow for growth and fantastic customer service. Among the company’s main ideals is to provide funding request approvals or denials within three hours or less.
One of the main challenges for online small business funding and its related activities in 2020, said Funding Metrics co-founder David Frascella, is increasing awareness of all the offers and products out there, including from his company. “There are plenty of options in today’s market,” he said. Increasing that awareness, he added, is something the industry should come together to better address. “We look forward to additional submissions from the ISO network and funding the next wave of small business leaders nationwide,” he said.
Funding Metrics is also a platinum sponsor of Broker Fair 2020 on May 18th in New York City.
Lendio Plans Development and Growth With $55 Million Series E
February 27, 2020
Today Lendio announced that it raised $55 million as part of its series E funding round. This included $31 million in equity led by Mercato Partners Traverse Fund and a $24 million debt facility from Signature Bank.
“We think that we’re just getting started, that there’s a really large opportunity in front of us and we’re excited that this round will give us the fuel that we need to continue to grow,” Lendio CEO Brock Blake told deBanked in a call. “We have a few different reasons for pulling together the round, but primarily, it’s all around investing in organic growth through partnerships and different marketing channels.”
Asked where these funding rounds may continue in an F, G, and H, Blake was unsure, saying that “every time we raise a round we do it with the expectation that it will be the last round.”
The funds in part will be used to further develop Lendio’s integrated lenders services, which are a set of tools used to identify which loan product and lender are the best match for a business owner; as well as the expansion of Sunrise, the bookkeeping platform Lendio acquired in 2019.
Intuit Agrees to Buy Credit Karma For $7.1 Billion
February 26, 2020
This week the news broke that a deal had been reached between Credit Karma and Intuit that will see the latter purchase Credit Karma for $7.1 billion, paid for with cash and stock. After rumors of the deal leaked over the weekend, the agreement was confirmed on Monday by chief executives from both companies.
Under the deal, Credit Karma will continue to operate as a stand-alone business and its CEO, Kenneth Lin, will stay on and run the company. Beyond that, some believe that the merger will see Intuit rise as a go-to platform for financial services. Owning TurboTax as well as Mint, tools for filing taxes and budgeting, respectively, the addition of Credit Karma, which allows customers to view their credit score for free, would advance Intuit’s product suite as well as bolster the data it already has on users.
“There hasn’t been that much innovation in the financial services world in the past two decades,” Credit Karma Founder and CEO Kenneth Lin said. “The combination of the two companies will really be able to move consumers forward.”
Credit Karma claims to have 100 million customers, with half of all American millennials being included within that number. It also states that it has over 2,600 data points on each customer, including their social security number as well as loan history. The company makes its money by selling customer information to third parties who advertise new credit cards and loans on the Credit Karma site. Credit Karma also receives a couple of hundred dollars for each card and loan that is acquired through ads on its site. Being one of the few tech startups that actually turn a profit, Credit Karma claimed to have received $1 billion in revenue in 2019.
Speaking on the deal, Intuit’s CEO, Sasan Goodarzi, said that “This is very core to what we’ve declared around helping our customers make ends meet and make smart money decisions.”
Luxury Asset Capital Acquires and Relaunches Borro
February 26, 2020
Luxury Asset Capital, the Denver-based lender that secures financing against goods such as Ferraris and Rolexes, has announced this month that it has acquired Borro and will be relaunching borro.com. LAC did not disclose the purchase price.
The news comes after LAC had been in talks to acquire Borro for years, LAC CEO Dewey Burke told deBanked. The merger will see Borro’s New York office remain open for business as many of its staff will stay on. As well as this, LAC and Borro will now be offering loans on a wider range of goods, that start at lower minimum amounts, and which will make use of more flexible terms, Burke stated.
“This was a transformational acquisition for us because obviously the competitor was out of the marketplace, but it really pushed us further to the forefront of being the preeminent lender in our niche space.”
Other news to come from announcement is that LAC is now offering to store customers’ luxury assets in its company vault, allowing the users who choose to do so to access capital immediately via a phone call. LAC will also be retiring its Lux Exchange and Pawngo brands, in favor of replacing them with Borro, because, as Burke put it, “we just thought it was a brand that was stronger than the legacy brands that we had.”
Beyond the merger, LAC plans to continue forging corporate partnerships, like that of its preexisting one with WatchBox, a trading service for preowned luxury watches. The strategy here being to link with the luxury goods ecosystem, enabling convenient pathways for customers to collateralize their asset.
Bitty Advance Has a New Major Partner
February 21, 2020Craig Hecker, who founded and sold Rapid Capital Funding, has acquired a stake in Bitty Advance. According to the press release, Hecker and Bitty Advance CEO Edward Siegel first met more than ten years ago when Siegel had just entered the merchant cash advance industry at Rapid Capital Funding.
Bitty has been on the move. The company has been a regular participant in the networking conferences that deBanked puts on each year.
Siegel says of Hecker in the announcement that “I am thrilled to bring on Craig with all of his MCA experience and his creative thinking to help scale Bitty’s growth.”
The newly-made partners told deBanked that they believe this deal will enable Bitty Advance to leap forward to the next level by adding technology to fund faster and create an industry changing awesome customer experience.
