Announcements

Fora Financial & Expansion Capital Group Partner with Ocrolus to Automate Underwriting Legwork

New York, NY — Ocrolus, the emerging leader in analyzing loan documents, today announced integrations with Fora Financial and Expansion Capital Group, two of the fastest-growing online small business lenders. Enabling quicker and more precise loan decisions, Ocrolus has seen rapid adoption since its debut in the small business lending world with flagship customer Strategic Funding Source in May 2017. Following its Series A round highlighted by QED Investors, Ocrolus is quickly growing its customer base and team with laser-focus on the lending space.

Ocrolus employs crowdsourcing and artificial intelligence to drive efficiencies in the origination process, from document collection to calculating credit model inputs. The Company’s simple API ingests and analyzes bank statements and other loan files, returning actionable data and risk analytics, with 99+% accuracy.

Fora Financial, one of the most prominent New York City-based online lenders, has partnered with Ocrolus to automate bank statement reviews, resulting in a faster, more accurate end-to-end underwriting workflow. The benefits of automation have become increasingly important as Fora Financial accelerated growth after its June 2018 acquisition of US Business Funding. Leveraging Ocrolus to parallelize underwriting tasks, Fora Financial is poised to eclipse $400 million in annual originations over the next year.

“We are excited to automate an additional step in our underwriting process that has historically been very laborious, requiring additional staffing as we grew originations,” said Dan Smith, Co-founder and President of Fora Financial. “As a tech-enabled SMB lender, we rely on our technology to achieve scale while delivering a frictionless process for small businesses to access capital.” 

Expansion Capital Group (ECG), recently honored on the 2018 Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, has also partnered with Ocrolus to enhance its underwriting process. ECG sought a loan automation partner to facilitate ambitious growth objectives while improving risk management capabilities. With Ocrolus now handling its document analysis work, ECG, who has grown 627% over the past three years, looks forward to scaling its operation to new heights, thanks to its leaner, technology-enabled infrastructure.

Herk Christie, Head of Operations at ECG says, “Using Ocrolus solutions, we have been able to create a lean, smart and tech-enabled underwriting infrastructure that focuses on quality without sacrificing speed. The level of data Ocrolus provides will continue to feed the growth of our statistical models, further benefiting our clients and partners alike.”

Growing beyond online small business lending, into online personal lending and traditional banking, Ocrolus has added a couple of prominent lending executives to its team. Matt Burton, former CEO of Orchard Platform has joined Ocrolus as a Board Advisor. Kevin Bailey, former Senior Advisor at the US Department of Treasury, has joined Ocrolus as Head of Growth.

As CEO of Orchard Platform (acquired by Kabbage), Matt Burton became a cornerstone of the online lending community. Orchard’s Online Lending Meetup events regularly brought together industry thought leaders from all over the world, helping to shape the next generation of financial services. As an Advisor to Ocrolus, Mr. Burton is continuing his mission to grow online lending into an efficient, transparent, and global financial market.

A former White House and Treasury official, Kevin Bailey brings more than fifteen years of experience as a financial services and public policy professional. Prior to joining Ocrolus, Kevin was the Director of Business Development & Capital Markets at CommonBond, a leading marketplace student lender. Mr. Bailey is a graduate of Rice University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. At Ocrolus, Mr. Bailey is leading growth efforts as the Company expands beyond its core online small business lending market, into online personal lending and traditional banking.

Visit www.ocrolus.com for more information.

About Ocrolus

Ocrolus is a RegTech company that automates data verification and analysis for bank statements and other loan documents. The Company analyzes e-statements, scans, and cell phone images of documents from any financial institution with over 99% accuracy, and rigorous process documentation. By replacing tedious, imperfect human audits with sharp, AI-driven analyses, Ocrolus modernizes financial review processes in lending with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

Media Inquiries:
media@ocrolus.com

National Funding Promotes Justin Thompson

National Funding announced today that Justin Thompson, formerly Executive Vice President of Sales, has been promoted to Chief Revenue Officer of National Funding. The new position is an expanded role that will include Thompson’s previous management of a 100-person sales division that includes Direct Sales, Renewal Sales, Broker Sales, Equipment Financing and the responsibilities of developing the company’s new Strategic Partnership vertical.

“On the heels of our acquisition of QuickBridge, and the explosive profitable growth of National Funding, this is a great time to expand our offerings to clients with new products and solutions,” said Dave Gilbert, National Funding founder and CEO. “Justin has led sales through the biggest growth period in our 20-year history and I am thrilled for him to continue building on this strong record.”

Thompson started working as Director of Sales for National Funding in 2002, according to his LinkedIn profile, and he has remained with the company until now, with the exception of a two year stint at Reliant Services Group working as Director of Sales & Operations.

“I have never been more excited about the future of National Funding as I am now,” said Thompson. “With the acquisition of QuickBridge, expansion of our strategic partnership channel, and the ever-improving performance of National Funding, we have a lot to offer our customers and brokers – making us an important resource for small and medium-sized businesses nationwide.”

National Funding has also made two additions to support the growth of Strategic Partnerships. Jason Osiecki, previously Head of Sales for QuickBridge, has been named Vice President, Strategic Partnership for National Funding. He will be tasked with driving growth opportunities in the merchant processing, leasing, B2C, Lender Decline and other markets. And Kevin Kane has been appointed as Director of Business Alliances. He will manage day-to-day relationships with brokers across the country.