Kabbage to Acquire Orchard Platform Markets

Update 4/26/18: The acquisition is now confirmed

Kabbage is set to acquire Orchard Platform Markets, a provider of lending data and investment advisory services, according to a Bloomberg report yesterday. However, neither company has confirmed this and both companies were unreachable today.   

Orchard was founded in 2013 by David Snitkof, Angela Ceresnie, Jonathan Kelfer, Matt Burton and Phil Rosen. Burton and Kelfer both worked previously at Google and Snitkof and Ceresnie worked at Citigroup and American Express. The company has raised nearly $60 million in three rounds, according to Crunchbase, and investors include Spark Capital, Thrive Capital, as well as Vikram Pandit, former CEO of Citigroup and John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley. Indeed, no shabby group.  

As this acquisition has not yet been confirmed, the amount Kabbage might be paying for the company is also unknown. According to Orchard’s website, it employs 31 people (including executives) in an office in Manhattan’s Flatiron district, known as a hub for tech startups. The Bloomberg story indicates that co-founders Burton and Snitkof will join Kabbage at its New York office. Founders Ceresnie and Rosen no longer work for Orchard. With headquarters in Atlanta, Kabbage is one of the largest small business lenders in the country and recently launched a new feature of its loan product at LendIt.

Despite the big name investors Orchard had when it started, some suspect the company may have lost momentum. AltFinanceDaily called a number of leaders in the alternative lending space and none were willing to comment until the acquisition was made certain.           

Todd Stone was a reporter for AltFinanceDaily.