Industry News
Ocrolus Partners with Kiva to Provide Funding and Publish its Customers’ Stories
February 6, 2020
Ocrolus has announced a partnership with Kiva, the Californian non-profit that provides loans to entrepreneurs in countries underserved by funding options. The deal comes after news of Ocrolus’s partnership with Plaid in December, a venture that helped launch the Ocrolus+ platform.
As part of Kiva’s work to help global small business owners, it publishes the stories of those entrepreneurs, charting how they set up their business and what led them to do it. Ocrolus will follow Kiva’s suit with this partnership, as it plans to publish the stories of its own fintech customers. Aiming to highlight the biographies of those businesses and entrepreneurs that have excelled in the alternative finance and fintech industries, Ocrolus will provide $5,000 for Kiva-backed loans for each story published to its site. If the published business chooses to match this funding, Ocrolus will put forward a further $5,000, bringing the total appropriation for Kiva to $15,000.
Speaking on the partnership, Ocrolus’s COO Vikas Dua told deBanked that the inspiration for the deal came after listening to a podcast that featured one of the co-founders of Toms, a company known for its ‘one for one’ policy which sees a pair of shoes being donated to children in need for every pair bought.
“The best part of Kiva is the types of folks you’re helping and the impact you can have. They do a great job of sharing stories of entrepreneurs and folks in need,” Dua said in a call. “Everyone’s incentives are tied together. Overall, we’re just very excited about the mission and very excited not only to tell our customers’ stories, but also to highlight some of the things we’re doing for the folks that Kiva interacts with and they fund. They have some wonderful stories there and we’re excited to share those as well.”
CAN Capital Brings On Edward Dietz as Chief Compliance Officer & General Counsel
February 5, 2020
CAN Capital is continuing its executive hiring spree into 2020 with the news that it has brought on Edward Dietz as its latest Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel. After providing legal expertise to Marlin Business Services Corporation for nine years and working as an associate for two law firms in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania previous to this, Dietz will oversee CAN’s compliance with all federal and state lending, banking, and securities laws.
“Having worked with Ed and knowing his skill set and the many intangibles that he brings to CAN, I feel fortunate that he’s leading our legal and compliance efforts,” noted CEO Edward Siciliano in a statement. “Ed’s just what we needed as we position CAN for growth and to lead a new era of small business lending.”
Having graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 2004, Dietz has nearly two decades of legal experience.
Speaking on the news, Dietz said that he “could not be more excited to join a company and a team that believes so deeply that its people and its culture are the keys to harnessing the company’s growth potential.”
Kabbage Introduces Customized Short Term Loans
February 4, 2020
Today Kabbage, the Atlanta-based fintech company that has been funding businesses since 2009, announced its latest product: customized short-term loans that are a result of the combination of Kabbage Payments and Kabbage Funding.
The loans, which run for the length of 3-45 days, are best suited to those businesses who need funding to cover issues in cash flow caused by the unpredictability of revenue, says Kabbage’s Head of Income Products Abraham Williams. “Rent and payroll are on set days every month, but getting paid is variable. We’ve done loans for 6, 12, and 18 months, and we’ve seen that people pay those off sooner, so we saw a need to have a short-term loan to fill gaps in cash flow.”
The terms of such loans will be decided upon by making use of the aggregate data that Kabbage has access to. With its customers providing a number of data points, such as their Amazon account, banking details, payment processes, and social media accounts, Kabbage is in “a really unique position because of the way that we make decisions on loans for small businesses,” notes Williams. “We can really see a very complete picture of a business, which can be different than how other people are essentially underwriting and assessing risk for loans.”
Two options are available for repayment: a traditional balloon payment to be paid at the end of the 45-day period, or a percentage of each sale made using Kabbage Payments going towards repayment. The latter of these provides more flexibility, with merchants being able to choose the percentage of each sale that is to go toward Kabbage and, as well as this, the fee attached to the Kabbage Payments option is smaller.
With the fee’s amount and terms being dictated by aggregated data, Kabbage is describing them as “dynamic,” providing individualized offers. Fees begin at 0.1% with the minimum amount to be borrowed being $500 and the maximum set at 10% of a merchant’s available line of credit for the short-term.
Liberis Secures $42 Million in Funding, Plans American Expansion
February 3, 2020
Liberis, the London-based small business finance provider, secured £32 million ($42 million) in capital late last month following a round of equity fundraising. The firm, which has funded businesses through cash advances since 2007, has now raised a total of over £150 million ($197 million) via debt and equity.
Having already entered Nordic markets, Liberis looks to use this funding to further expand into Europe as well as make their mark in America. Speaking to deBanked, Liberis CEO Rob Straathof explained that the company would be working with its North American partner, Worldpay, to spread itself across all 50 states. Beyond Worldpay, Liberis is planning to create more partnerships with merchant acquirers, those payment platforms which serve merchants, or “SME champions,” as Straathof calls them.
Liberis will not be using brokers to provide cash advances to business owners in the States, the reason being that the company prefers to work with its affiliated partners. “We purely rely on our partners and integrating with our partners,” explained Straathof. “In the UK we still do brokers, but that’s kind of a legacy. It works very well for us and we have a great relationship with brokers. It’s a good channel for us, but we have no intention at this point to launch that in the US.”
The company will also use the funding to increase its staff by 30% in 2020, hiring around 50 people to bolster its 165-person workforce across their four offices in London, Dublin, Stockholm, and Denver.
The Scoop Behind Sprout Funding’s Acquisition of Jet Capital
January 25, 2020
News from North Texas this month as Dallas-based Sprout Funding announced its acquisition of Jet Capital. The move comes as Sprout seeks to expand its technical operations.
“Sprout built a reputation as a group that funds a lot of its own internal deals, and Jet had spent a lot of time, energy, and money on their tech platforms,” Sprout’s CEO and Founder Brad Woy told deBanked. “So while we were really good on the sales and marketing side, they seemed to be a little bit more advanced in their tech and reporting, and we brought those two things together.”
Almost all of Jet’s employees will be joining Sprout, with the exception of one person who chose to go their separate way following the merger.
Jet’s COO Allan Thompson spoke kindly of the purchase, saying in a statement that “There is a great cultural alignment in addition to the obvious benefits of combining our technology, processes and people. The result will provide increased capabilities for Sprout and opportunity for all of our customers and partners.”
The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Quarterspot is Shifting Its Business Focus
January 22, 2020Last week, several industry insiders reported receiving an email from NY-based company Quarterspot that said their agreement had been terminated.
The contents stated that the company is “shifting its business focus and will no longer be originating loans, but will continue to service currently outstanding loans.”
deBanked has confirmed that to be true. More information may be reported as it becomes available.
Broker Fair 2020 Announces Two Special Keynote Speakers
January 17, 2020Two special guests will speak at Broker Fair 2020 on May 18th in New York City. Scott Rasmussen and John Henry will complement a roster of leading professionals from the commercial finance industry. Broker Fair 2020 will be deBanked’s largest ever event.
TICKETS ARE ON SALE NOW AND EARLY BIRD PRICING IS STILL AVAILABLE!
Nav Co-founders Step Down From C-Level Positions
January 14, 2020
Levi King, a co-founder of Nav Inc., resigned as the company’s CEO on Tuesday. In a two-part explanation on LinkedIn, King wrote. “To be clear, I’m not burned out on Nav. I’m not aspiring to do something elsewhere, and I’m not leaving the company. I’m still dedicated and passionate about helping Nav succeed. And, I will – just in a different capacity moving forward.”
King will do that by serving as the executive chairman of the board of directors. President & COO Greg Ott will take over as CEO.
On LinkedIn, King further wrote that the company needs “a more qualified leader” to take Nav to the next level after he and co-founder Caton Hanson have successfully grown the company to the right point.
Hanson, who served as the company’s Chief Legal & Compliance Officer, also stepped down and updated his job role with Nav to that of being “Of Counsel” on a part-time basis. Unlike King’s message on LinkedIn, Hanson’s reads as a farewell.
“Thank you for believing in me and our dream,” he wrote. “Thank you for your part in helping Nav achieve what some have called ‘impossible’. I am grateful to know you, have had the opportunity to work alongside you and to call you friends (and for many of you — co-owners). I look forward to Nav’s next chapter – and mine.”
Greg Ott, the new leader of the company, is said in a Nav press announcement to have served as a strategic and organizational leader in both startups and Fortune 1000 corporations. Prior to joining Nav, Ott served as Vice President of Marketing for Intuit QuickBooks.
“Nav’s founders created a company that is truly unique in its ability to revolutionize how small business owners navigate and access capital to grow their business,” Ott commented. “I look forward to building upon Nav’s successes and furthering the company’s vision of aligning financing qualifications, predicting needs, and facilitating transactions between data providers, lenders, partners and small businesses.”
