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Capify Announces $10 Million Equity Round As Well As Continued Support From Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division

September 30, 2020

Capify Announces $10 Million Equity Round As Well As Continued Support From Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division

Capify To Support UK and Australia Small Businesses With Much Needed
Access To Business Loans Especially During COVID-19 Pandemic

(Manchester, England and Sydney, Australia) – Capify (http://www.capify.co.uk, http://www.capify.com.au ), a leading fintech small business lending platform, today announced it has closed a $10 million equity round as well as continued support from Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division through its existing credit facilities.

“The fact that we were able to raise $10 million for an online small business lender in the midst of a global pandemic from sophisticated investors with industry experience speaks to Capify’s business model, the unprecedented opportunity ahead of us and its management team,” said David Goldin, Founder and CEO of Capify.

Continued, Mr. Goldin, “We believe demand by small businesses seeking access to unsecured capital will be at unprecedented levels because most businesses have already accessed the government backed business loan programs in the UK and Australia market but will still need additional capital – as do the many businesses that didn’t qualify for the Government guaranteed programs and are seeking much needed working capital to grow.”

In addition, Capify is actively seeking partnerships with companies with large small business customer bases to provide much needed financing to their small business customers, thus allowing them access to capital to purchase goods / services which have proven financially difficult during this challenging time. Furthermore, we are looking for opportunities where we can assist our industry peers who don’t have access to capital during this time by providing capital to their customer base.

Capify’s 12 year presence in the UK and Australia market is more relevant than ever as small businesses demand for access to capital to navigate through COVID-19 is at an all time high. According to John Rozenbroek, COO / CFO of Capify, “It is crucial at this time that small businesses are aware of alternative funding solutions to support cash flow or invest in their future. Capify is one of the few online small business lending platforms in the marketplace that can actively provide non-government backed business loans at scale to small businesses seeking working capital to grow their business. ”

About Capify

Capify is an online lender that provides flexible financing solutions to small businesses in the UK and Australia seeking working capital to sustain or grow their business. The fintech company has been operating in the UK and Australia market for over 12 years.

For more details about Capify, visit

Capify UK: http://www.capify.co.uk

Capify Australia: http://www.capify.com.au

Capify UK Media Contact:

Ian Wood, Marketing Director
iwood@capify.co.uk
+44 0161 393 9536

Capify Australia Media Contact:

Nandita Graham, Senior Marketing Manager
ngraham@capify.com.au
+61 433 511 653

BFS Capital Hires Peter Ng as CRO

March 20, 2020

Article by: Brendan Garrett

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.”

BFS Capital Hires New COO

November 12, 2019

Article by: Brendan Garrett

BFS announced this morning that it has hired Brian Simmons as its new Chief Operating Officer. The news come as the company is preparing for the North American launch of its tech platform in December, a move that is part of BFS’s vision to become a more customer-focused business.

This planned “journey,” as CEO Mark Ruddock calls it, has been demonstrated in the past with the hiring of Fred Kauber as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer in May.

“If you’re going to be a successful venture-backed company,” Ruddock explains, “you need to think differently and act differently.” And this approach is manifested in Simmons’ history. Having worked in a diverse set of fields, the new COO has previously worked with Openlane, a B2B digital automotive marketplace; Wonga, the peer-to-peer lender where he was Head of Global Products and where he was introduced to Ruddock; and the IATF, or International Axe Throwing Federation, where he was a Co-founder and board member.

Together these experiences form a patchworked career, highlighting different skills and industries, but Simmons affirms that they’ve molded him to fit into BFS. “I think that the overarching theme has been that I’ve always been drawn by innovation,” Simmons explains, noting that his experience with Wonga provided him with a knowledge of financial services that is crucial to his role at BFS, while his time with the IATF benefitted him by endowing an intimate knowledge of the financial pressures small businesses face.

“What’s spoken to me at each turn is the opportunity to be involved with organizations who are at the bleeding edge of what they are doing and just incredibly innovative in their approach to doing business […] I’ve been really fortunate to work with a number of quite successful organizations at different phases in their life cycle and I think that’s given me an understanding of what works and what doesn’t.”

Going forward, Simmons will be managing the progress of transforming lead-loan operational processes and focusing on the company’s transition to a fully digital-enabled lending platform.

“To transform anything successfully is an exercise of effective change management, and there’s a real art to doing that right,” Simmons notes. “It’s not just doing things better, it’s how you communicate to people, how you do it in the right sequencing, how you get the right team together to affect things in the right way.”

2019 Top 25 Executive Leaders in Lending – Canadian Lenders Association – Presented By BMO

November 11, 2019

Article by: deBanked Staff

The Canadian Lenders Assocation (CLA) received 124 nominations for these awards from leaders in lending across the country. The CLA’s goal is to support access to credit in the Canadian marketplace and champion the companies and entrepreneurs who are leading innovations in this industry.

The Top 25 ﬁnalists in this report represent various innovations in the borrower’s journey from innovations in artiﬁcial intelligence powered credit modelling to breakthroughs in consumer identity management using blockchain technologies. These ﬁnalists also represent solutions for a wide spectrum of borrower maturity and needs, ranging from consumer credit rebuilding all the way to senior debt placements for global technology ventures.

See The Leading Companies Report Here

See The Leading Executives Report Here

	Mark Cashin CEO of myBrokerBee \| Ontario After a career in commercial ﬁnance and being CEO of Transpor, Mark Co-founded myBrokerBee a mortgage broker platform that provides transparency to private lenders and their clients.
	Avinash Chidambaram CEO of Ario Platform \| Ontario Through his experience as Product lead at Interac and Blackberry, Avinash has helped bring together an accomplished and talented group of experts in Data Science, Machine Learning, Security, Software Development to successfully develop this banking services software platform Ario.
	Evan Chrapko CEO of Trust Science \| Alberta Evan is the founder and CEO of Trust Science, a leader in organizing alternative credit data. As a saas founder and CEO, Evan has done over 500mm in startup exits.
	Kevin Clark President of Lendified \| Ontario Kevin is a recognized leader in the ﬁnancial services industry with over 30 years of experience. Kevin has helped create the voice of Canada’s SME lending ecosystem through his leadership of Lendiﬁed and the CLA.
	Jerome Dwight VP of Cox Automotive \| Ontario Jerome established Nextgear Capital in Canada to become the largest specialty ﬁnance company in the automotive sector. Jerome is a Globe & Mail 40 under 40 winner and previously lead RBC’s international wealth management, private banking and asset servicing business.
	Saul Fine CEO of Innovative Assessmer \| Israel Saul is a licensed organizational psychologist and psychometrician, and a former lecturer in psychology at the University of Haifa. Saul is a global leader in the use of psychometric data for credit scoring and ﬁnancial inclusion.
	David Gens CEO of Merchant Growth \| BC David is the Founder and CEO of Merchant Growth, which grew from its humble beginnings in his apartment to ofﬁces in both Toronto and Vancouver. David now leads one of Canada’s largest online small business ﬁnance companies.
	Bryan Jaskolka COO of CMI \| Ontario Nominated for the 2018 Mortgage Broker of the Year, Bryan Jaskolka is an expert in Canadian mortgage ﬁnancing with a particular focus on the alternative lending space and mortgage investing.
	Peter Kalen CEO of Flexiti \| Ontario Peter is a leader in Canada’s retail ﬁnancing market. Before founding Flexiti, Peter was in senior leadership positions at Citi, PC Financial, and Sears Canada. Flexiti was recently named #7 on the Deloitte Fast50.
	Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf CEO of Flinks \| Quebec Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf is the co-founder and CEO of Flinks. Under his leadership, Flinks has become a Canadian leader in banking data enablement.
	Derek Manuge CEO of Corl \| Ontario Derek, also known as the “the quant from Canada” is the founder of the data-driven venture ﬁrm, Corl. Corl is one of Canada’s leaders in the use revenue-share ﬁnancing models.
	Keren Moynihan CEO of Boss Insights \| Ontario Keren Moynihan is co-founder and CEO of Boss Insights, a company that uses big data and AI to accelerate lending from months to minutes. With a Joint JD/MBA, Keren has a diverse background as a commercial banker, wealth manager and former founder of an impact startup.
	Jason Mullins CEO of Goeasy \| Ontario Jason is President and CEO of goeasy, a publicly listed consumer lender. Jason has lead the company to become one of the largest and most innovative lenders in the country.
	Paul Pitcher CEO of SharpShooter Funding \| Ontario After founding First Down Funding, an alternative lending ﬁrm for SMEs in Baltimore, Paul expanded his business to Canada through the subsidiary Sharpshooter Funding.
	Brendan Playford & Cate Rung Co-Founders of Pngme \| USA Cate, ex-Uber and Brendan, a blockchain and agro-ﬁnance entrepreneur are the co-founders of Pngme, an alternative lending platform for ﬁnancial institutions in emerging markets who serve Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises.
	Wayne Pommen CEO of Paybright \| Ontario Wayne is the President and CEO of PayBright. Wayne is also a director of IOU Financial Inc and of HBC. Previously, Wayne was a Principal at TorQuest Partners, one of Canada’s leading private equity ﬁrms, and a management consultant with Bain & Company in the UK, the US, and Canada.
	Adam Reeds CEO of Ledn \| Ontario Adam is a pioneer and thought leader in the digital asset backed lending space. Ledn is focused on building innovative ﬁnancial products in the emerging digital asset space, with a focused mission to help people save more in bitcoin.
	Adam Rice CEO of LoanConnect \| Ontario Adam has played a pivotal role in building one of the largest online markets in Canada for unsecured loans.
	Mark Ruddock CEO of BFS Capital \| Ontario Mark is an experienced international CEO with two successful exits and over 20 years of experience at the helm of VC backed technology and ﬁntech startups. In 2019 Mark announced BFS Capital’s expansion to Canada with a new 50 engineer data science hub in the heart of Toronto.
	Vlad Sherbatov President of Smarter Loans \| Ontario Vlad Co-founded Smarter Loans in 2016 with the goal of helping Canadians make smarter ﬁnancial decisions. Since then, Vlad has grown the platform into one of the go-to resources for Canadian borrowers.
	Steven Uster CEO of FundThrough \| Ontario Steven is the Co-Founder & CEO of FundThrough, an invoice funding service that helps business owners eliminate “the wait” associated with payment terms by giving them the power and ﬂexibility to get their invoices paid when they want, with one click, and in as little as 24 hours.
	Dmitry Voronenko CEO of Turnkey Lender\| Singapore Dmitry, CEO and Co-founder of TurnKey Lender, holds a PhD in Artiﬁcial Intelligence. Dmitry was recently named SFA’s Fintech Leader of the year.
	Neil Wechsler CEO of Ondeck Canada \| Quebec Neil brieﬂy practiced law before becoming President and CEO of Optimal Group Inc. where he grew the company from a start-up to a leading NASDAQ-listed self-checkout and payments company. Neil later co-founded Evolocity, which in 2019 became OnDeck Canada.
	Michael Wendland CEO of Refresh \| BC Michael has led Refresh Financial’s rapid growth since its founding in 2013, including a recent ranking of number 40 on Deloitte’s Fast 500.

2019 Top 25 Company Leaders in Lending – Canadian Lenders Association – Presented By BMO

November 11, 2019

Article by: deBanked Staff

The Canadian Lenders Assocation (CLA) received 124 nominations for these awards from leaders in lending across the country. The CLA’s goal is to support access to credit in the Canadian marketplace and champion the companies and entrepreneurs who are leading innovations in this industry.

The Top 25 ﬁnalists in this report represent various innovations in the borrower’s journey from innovations in artiﬁcial intelligence powered credit modelling to breakthroughs in consumer identity management using blockchain technologies. These ﬁnalists also represent solutions for a wide spectrum of borrower maturity and needs, ranging from consumer credit rebuilding all the way to senior debt placements for global technology ventures.

See The Leading Companies Report Here

See The Leading Executives Report Here

	BDC The 75 year old ﬁrm is the only Canadian bank devoted exclusively to supporting entrepreneurs.
	Borrowell Borrowell helps Canadians make great decisions about credit. They were the ﬁrst company in Canada to offer credit scores for free, without applying for credit, and currently has over 800,000 users. Eva Wong and Andrew Graham were the joint recipients our the CLA’s awards in 2018.
	Clearbanc Clearbanc offers a new approach to capital access for entrepreneurs that uses AI to determine funding terms with a focus on unit economics and repayment through revenue share as a way to get founders access to the capital they need to fuel their growth.
	CreditSnap CreditSnap is a best in class pre-qualiﬁcation and cross selling engine to deliver highly relevant pre-qualiﬁed loan offers to CreditSnap banks and CUs.
	Dealnet Capital Dealnet Capital services the home and retail sectors providing end-to-end ﬁnancing plus innovative technology and communication solutions.
	Espresso Capital Since 2009, Espresso Capital has provided over 230 early and growth stage technology companies with founder friendly capital. Espresso offers lines of credit and term loans to enable entrepreneurs to grow their businesses without dilution, board seats, or personal guarantees.
	Financeit Financeit is a market leading point-of-sale consumer ﬁnancing provider, servicing the home improvement, vehicle and retail industries.
	First West Capital First West Capital is a leader in Canadian mid-market business funding. First West Capital helps ventures acquire and transition through innovative junior capital ﬁnancing.
	Home Trust Home Trust Company is one of Canada’s leading trust companies. Home Trust offers Canadians a wide range of ﬁnancial product and service alternatives, including mortgages, Visa cards, deposits and retail credit services.
	Inverite Inverite is the ﬁrst Canadian designed, developed and focused real-time bank veriﬁcation service. With coverage for over 240 Canadian FIs.
	IOU Financial Based in Montreal, IOU Financial provides small businesses throughout the U.S. and Canada access to the capital they need to seize growth opportunities quickly.
	Lending Loop Lending Loop is Canada’s ﬁrst and only regulated peer-to-peer lending marketplace focused on small business.
	Magical Credit Magical Credit has been helping Canadians consumers get approved for quick and simple short term personal loans since 2014. They offer personal loans up to $10,000 regardless of the borrowers past ﬁnancial issues or credit.
	Manzil Manzil is the market leader in the manufacturing and distribution of Islamic Financial products for Canadians who wish to balance material pursuits with their spiritual obligations.
	Marble Financial Marble Financial uses smart technology and socially responsible lending practices to help Canadians rebuild credit once their past debt has been settled by a consumer proposal.
	Owl owl.co is a customer insight engine that helps ﬁnancial institutions make better decisions. By connecting to tens of thousands of trusted data sources, Owl is able to instantly aggregate and synthesize millions of data points to learn more about customers and entities.
	Paays Paays is a Canadian eCommerce ﬁnancing solution for a new generation of digital consumers seeking “point of inspiration” ﬁnancing.
	PayPal Canada PayPal Canada recently announced a new SMB loan offering in Canada – a quick application process that can approve an applicant in minutes and transfer funds in one to two business days.
	Progressa Named by CB Insights to the 2018 Fintech 250, a list of the world’s top ﬁntech startups, Progressa is Canada’s fastest growing ﬁnancial technology lender focused on changing the way pay cheque to pay cheque Canadians access and build credit.
	Shopify Capital In its effort to become a one-stop e-commerce shop, Shopify Capital allows Shopify business owners to secure funding through revenue sharing on daily sales.
	Silicon Valley Bank For more than 35 years, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has helped innovative companies and their investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB provides a full range of ﬁnancial services and expertise to companies of all sizes in innovation centers around the world.
	Spring Financial Spring Financial is a subsidiary of Canada Drives, one of the leading brands for auto ﬁnancing in Canada. Spring provides accessible solutions for Canadians to establish a positive payment history.
	Thinking Capital Thinking Capital is a leader in the Canadian Online Lending space, leveraging technology to be at the forefront of the FinTech industry. Since 2006, they have helped more than 14,000 small-to-medium sized Canadian businesses reach their full potential
	Uplift Uplift’s mission is to make travel more accessible, affordable and rewarding by enabling travel providers such as JetBlue, American Airlines, and United to offer ﬂexible payments to their customers.
	Venbridge Venbridge is a leading Canadian venture debt ﬁrm. Venbridge provides SR&ED, grant and digital media ﬁnancing and consulting.

Presented By:

Merchant Cash Advance Industry Pioneer David Goldin Launches Lender Capital Partners To Provide Financing To Merchant Cash Advance / Alternative Business Loan Providers

November 5, 2019

Article by: Press Release

White Plains, NY – November 5, 2019 – David Goldin, one of the merchant cash advance industry pioneers who founded one of the first US merchant cash advance providers in 2002, Capify (formerly known as AmeriMerchant), that later expanded to the UK and Australia has partnered with a subsidiary of Basepoint Capital, a seasoned specialty finance group, to form Lender Capital Partners (http://www.lendercapitalpartners.com). Basepoint has provided over $300 million in committed financings / forward flow purchases in the merchant cash advance / alternative business loan industry.

Lender Capital Partners (LCP) provides MCA and alternative business lending platforms with strategic capital including:

Forward flow programs – LCP funds 100% of the amounts disbursed by the platform in connection with their funding of advances / business loans including sales commissions to their customers to free up cash and avoid the burden of equity requirements or “hair cut” money associated with traditional asset-based credit lines.
Participations / Syndication – by having LCP purchase a participation in larger deals, the platform is able to offer larger size approvals to their customers and brokers / referral partners without taking on concentration risk. LCP can participate up to $1 million in each deal and provide strategic capital by offering our many years of industry experience underwriting larger size deals.
Credit facilities – LCP provide credit facilities for MCA and alternative business loan providers that begin at a minimum of $20 million and can go up to $100 million+. Our credit facilities typically offer a higher advance rate than a bank and less stringent concentration limits.
Broker Graduation Program – LCP will allow brokers to take the next step of becoming a direct lender by providing the capital and know-how needed to fund deals on their own. Designed for brokers that can originate a minimum of $500k/month, LCP can provide the capital needed and set up brokers with one of our partners to provide a back office if needed for underwriting / servicing without having to make the investment on their own.
Point of Sales / Credit Card Processor Merchant Cash Advance / Merchant Financing Program – LCP can provide a turnkey solution for POS / Credit Card Processing companies to offer a merchant financing program to their merchants to compete with some of the larger POS providers / credit card processors that are now offering these programs in-house and have had great success. LCP can provide the capital needed for a merchant financing / merchant cash advance program as well as introduce one of our underwriting/servicing partners if needed.

“After exiting the US MCA business in 2017, I have decided the time is right to offer my 17+ years of global MCA / business lending experience to the industry by partnering with Basepoint to supply capital to the MCA / business loan industry. I believe the various programs we offer at Lender Capital Partners are tailored for just about any company in the industry – for both current lenders as well as larger brokers/ISOs that are looking to graduate to the next step of becoming a lender as well as to POS providers / merchant acquirers looking to offer an in-house program to their merchants. And my 17+ years industry experience is a great value-added benefit that very few lenders, if any can bring to the table”, says David Goldin, a principal of Lender Capital Partners.”

About LENDER CAPITAL PARTNERS

Lender Capital Partners provides capital to commercial lenders, particularly in the merchant cash advance / alternative business loan industry. One of the founders of Lender Capital Partners is David Goldin. David is the Founder of Capify, one of the first merchant cash advance providers in the US founded in 2002. David scaled Capify to 225 employees operating in 4 countries and sold the US business to a competitor in 2017 and secured a $95 million credit facility with Goldman Sachs to fund Capify UK and Capify Australia which has over 125 employees total today operating in each of those markets. David has over 17 years experience in the merchant cash advance / alternative business finance industry and is considered a pioneer in the industry. David’s extensive expertise allows Lender Capital Partners to bring strategic value to our relationships, not just capital. For more information on Lender Capital Partners, visit http://www.lendercapitalpartners.com

The 2019 Top Small Business Funders By Revenue

August 14, 2019

Article by: Sean Murray

The below chart ranks several companies in the non-bank small business financing space by revenue over the last 5 years. The data is primarily drawn from reports submitted to the Inc. 5000 list, public earnings statements, or published media reports. It is not comprehensive. Companies for which no data is publicly available are excluded. Want to add your figures? Email Sean@debanked.com

For rankings by origination volume, CLICK HERE

Small Business Funding Companies Ranked By 2018 Revenue

Company	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014
Square	$3,298,177,000	$2,214,253,000	$1,708,721,000	$1,267,118,000	$850,192,000
OnDeck	$398,376,000	$350,950,000	$291,300,000	$254,700,000	$158,100,000
Kabbage		$200,000,000+*	$171,784,000	$97,461,712	$40,193,000
Global Lending Services	$232,200,000	$125,700,000
Bankers Healthcare Group	$220,300,000	$160,300,000			$93,825,129
National Funding	$121,300,000	$94,500,000	$75,693,096	$59,075,878	$39,048,959
Forward Financing	$75,500,000	$42,100,000	$28,305,078
ApplePie Capital	$69,700,000
Fora Financial	$68,600,000	$50,800,000	$41,590,720	$33,974,000	$26,932,581
Reliant Funding	$64,800,000	$55,400,000	$51,946,000	$11,294,044	$9,723,924
Envision Capital Group	$32,700,000
Expansion Capital Group	$31,300,300	$23,400,000
SmartBiz Loans		$23,600,000
1 Global Capital	bankruptcy	$22,600,000
IOU Financial	$19,200,000	$17,415,096	$17,400,527	$11,971,148	$6,160,017
Quicksilver Capital		$16,500,000
Channel Partners Capital	$23,000,000	$14,500,000		$2,207,927	$4,013,608
Lendr	$16,500,000	$11,800,000
Lighter Capital	$16,000,000	$11,900,000	$6,364,417	$4,364,907
United Capital Source		$9,735,350	$8,465,260		$3,917,193
Fundera	$15,600,000	$8,800,000
US Business Funding	$14,800,000	$9,100,000	$5,794,936
Wellen Capital	$12,200,000	$13,200,000	$15,984,688
PIRS Capital	$11,900,000
Nav	$10,300,000	$5,900,000	$2,663,344
P2Binvestor	$10,000,000
Seek Business Capital	$8,800,000
Fund&Grow	$7,500,000	$5,700,000	$4,082,130
Funding Merchant Source	$7,500,000
Shore Funding Solutions	$5,000,000	$4,300,000
StreetShares	$4,967,426	$3,701,210	$647,119	$239,593
FitSmallBusiness.com		$3,000,000
Eagle Business Credit	$3,600,000	$2,600,000
Everlasting Capital	$2,500,000		$2,100,000
Swift Capital		acquired by PayPal	$88,600,000	$51,400,000	$27,540,900
Blue Bridge Financial			$6,569,714	$5,470,564
Fast Capital 360			$6,264,924
Cashbloom			$5,404,123	$4,804,112	$3,941,819
Priority Funding Solutions			$2,599,931

AltFinanceDaily’s Most Popular Stories of 2018

December 22, 2018

Article by: Sean Murray

Five of the top 10 most read stories of 2018 were related to the saga of 1st Global Capital; The bankruptcy, SEC charges, the revelation that they had made a $40 million merchant cash advance, and finally the devastating news of that deal falling apart. We decided to lump all of them together in our #1 slot, but first, the following story was the most independently read of 2018:

The Saga of 1st Global Capital

1. Largest MCA Deal in History Suffers Multiple Closures was picked up by ABC News in California, placing AltFinanceDaily’s website on TV for the first time.

These were the other most read stories related to 1st Global Capital

Bloomberg Businessweek began publishing a series in November about the allegedly scandalous merchant cash advance industry. An initial review by AltFinanceDaily uncovered questionable holes in their reporting, but when the series’ senior editor thanked a state senator for proposing legislation in response, suspicious ties were uncovered, followed by one Bloomberg reporter wiping his twitter account clean. Bloomberg’s exaggerated series dubbed #signhereloseeverything has spawned a highly popular counterseries that has challenged Bloomberg’s reporting. We call it #tweetherewipeeverything. The following stories were all in the year’s top 12 most read, but we’ve lumped them together here at #2.

The Bloomberg Blitz

2. Multimillionaire CEO Claims Predatory Lenders are Causing Him to Sell His Furniture for Food

The other two were:

Arrested for Data Theft

3. CAUGHT: Backdoored Deals Leads to Handcuffs was the year’s third most read story.

MCAs are Not Usurious

4. It’s Settled: Merchant Cash Advances Not Usurious came in at #4 this year, ending the debate that has persisted in hundreds of cases at the trial court level in New York State.

In October 2016, the plaintiffs sued defendant Pearl in the New York Supreme Court alleging that the Confession of Judgment filed against them should be vacated because the underlying agreement was criminally usurious. As support, plaintiffs argued that the interest rate of the transaction was 43%, far above New York State’s legal limit of 25%. The defendant denied it and moved to dismiss, wherein the judge concurred that the documentary evidence utterly refuted plaintiffs’ allegations. Plaintiffs appealed and lost, wherein The Appellate Division of The First Department published their unanimous decision that the underlying Purchase And Sale of Future Receivables agreement between the parties was not usurious.

Debt Settlement Company Sued

5. ISOs Alleged to Be Partners in Debt Settlement “Scam” in Explosive Lawsuit was #5 in 2018. The lawsuit ultimately settled and resulted in a big payout to the MCA companies.

A Broker’s Bio

6. The Broker: How Zach Ramirez Makes Deals Happen was #6. AltFinanceDaily interviewed Zachary Ramirez to find out what makes a successful broker like him tick, how he does it, and what kinds of things he’s encountered along the way.

Ban COJs?

7. Senate Bill Introduced to Ban Confession of Judgments Nationwide was #7. Although this is related to the Bloomberg Blitz, the introduction of this bill fits more neatly into a category of its own.

Who’s Funding How Much?

8. A Preliminary Small Business Financing Leaderboard was #8. Despite this being published early in the year and offering detailed origination volumes for several companies all in one place, it wasn’t as well-read as all the drama that unfolded later in the year. Unsurprisingly, a chart of The Top 2018 Small Business Funders by Revenue ranked right behind this one, but we’ve lumped it in with #8 since it’s related.

Thoughts by Ron

9. Ron Suber: ‘This Industry Will Look Very Different One Year From Now’ was #9. Known as the Magic Johnson of fintech, the 1-year prediction by former Prosper Marketplace president Ron Suber, originally captured in the LendAcademy Podcast, resonated all throughout the fintech world. Will he be proven correct?

A Rags to Riches Tale

10. How A New Hampshire Teen Launched A Lending Company And Climbed Into The Inc. 500 was #10.

Josh Feinberg was not a complete newbie when he started in the lending business in 2009, but he also had a long way to go to find success. His dad had been in the business for 15 years and shortly after graduating high school, Josh started to work in equipment financing and leasing at Direct Capital in New Hampshire, his home state. He then had a brief stint working remotely for Balboa Capital, but he wasn’t sure that finance was for him.

He was 19, with a three year old daughter, and he took a low paying job working at a New Hampshire pawn shop owned by his brother and a guy named Will Murphy.

“I was making $267 a week at the pawn shop and I was having to ask friends to help me pay my rent for a room,” Feinberg said. “So at that point, I realized that something needed to change.”

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

	Mark Cashin CEO of myBrokerBee \| Ontario After a career in commercial ﬁnance and being CEO of Transpor, Mark Co-founded myBrokerBee a mortgage broker platform that provides transparency to private lenders and their clients.
	Avinash Chidambaram CEO of Ario Platform \| Ontario Through his experience as Product lead at Interac and Blackberry, Avinash has helped bring together an accomplished and talented group of experts in Data Science, Machine Learning, Security, Software Development to successfully develop this banking services software platform Ario.
	Evan Chrapko CEO of Trust Science \| Alberta Evan is the founder and CEO of Trust Science, a leader in organizing alternative credit data. As a saas founder and CEO, Evan has done over 500mm in startup exits.
	Kevin Clark President of Lendified \| Ontario Kevin is a recognized leader in the ﬁnancial services industry with over 30 years of experience. Kevin has helped create the voice of Canada’s SME lending ecosystem through his leadership of Lendiﬁed and the CLA.
	Jerome Dwight VP of Cox Automotive \| Ontario Jerome established Nextgear Capital in Canada to become the largest specialty ﬁnance company in the automotive sector. Jerome is a Globe & Mail 40 under 40 winner and previously lead RBC’s international wealth management, private banking and asset servicing business.
	Saul Fine CEO of Innovative Assessmer \| Israel Saul is a licensed organizational psychologist and psychometrician, and a former lecturer in psychology at the University of Haifa. Saul is a global leader in the use of psychometric data for credit scoring and ﬁnancial inclusion.
	David Gens CEO of Merchant Growth \| BC David is the Founder and CEO of Merchant Growth, which grew from its humble beginnings in his apartment to ofﬁces in both Toronto and Vancouver. David now leads one of Canada’s largest online small business ﬁnance companies.
	Bryan Jaskolka COO of CMI \| Ontario Nominated for the 2018 Mortgage Broker of the Year, Bryan Jaskolka is an expert in Canadian mortgage ﬁnancing with a particular focus on the alternative lending space and mortgage investing.
	Peter Kalen CEO of Flexiti \| Ontario Peter is a leader in Canada’s retail ﬁnancing market. Before founding Flexiti, Peter was in senior leadership positions at Citi, PC Financial, and Sears Canada. Flexiti was recently named #7 on the Deloitte Fast50.
	Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf CEO of Flinks \| Quebec Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf is the co-founder and CEO of Flinks. Under his leadership, Flinks has become a Canadian leader in banking data enablement.
	Derek Manuge CEO of Corl \| Ontario Derek, also known as the “the quant from Canada” is the founder of the data-driven venture ﬁrm, Corl. Corl is one of Canada’s leaders in the use revenue-share ﬁnancing models.
	Keren Moynihan CEO of Boss Insights \| Ontario Keren Moynihan is co-founder and CEO of Boss Insights, a company that uses big data and AI to accelerate lending from months to minutes. With a Joint JD/MBA, Keren has a diverse background as a commercial banker, wealth manager and former founder of an impact startup.
	Jason Mullins CEO of Goeasy \| Ontario Jason is President and CEO of goeasy, a publicly listed consumer lender. Jason has lead the company to become one of the largest and most innovative lenders in the country.
	Paul Pitcher CEO of SharpShooter Funding \| Ontario After founding First Down Funding, an alternative lending ﬁrm for SMEs in Baltimore, Paul expanded his business to Canada through the subsidiary Sharpshooter Funding.
	Brendan Playford & Cate Rung Co-Founders of Pngme \| USA Cate, ex-Uber and Brendan, a blockchain and agro-ﬁnance entrepreneur are the co-founders of Pngme, an alternative lending platform for ﬁnancial institutions in emerging markets who serve Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises.
	Wayne Pommen CEO of Paybright \| Ontario Wayne is the President and CEO of PayBright. Wayne is also a director of IOU Financial Inc and of HBC. Previously, Wayne was a Principal at TorQuest Partners, one of Canada’s leading private equity ﬁrms, and a management consultant with Bain & Company in the UK, the US, and Canada.
	Adam Reeds CEO of Ledn \| Ontario Adam is a pioneer and thought leader in the digital asset backed lending space. Ledn is focused on building innovative ﬁnancial products in the emerging digital asset space, with a focused mission to help people save more in bitcoin.
	Adam Rice CEO of LoanConnect \| Ontario Adam has played a pivotal role in building one of the largest online markets in Canada for unsecured loans.
	Mark Ruddock CEO of BFS Capital \| Ontario Mark is an experienced international CEO with two successful exits and over 20 years of experience at the helm of VC backed technology and ﬁntech startups. In 2019 Mark announced BFS Capital’s expansion to Canada with a new 50 engineer data science hub in the heart of Toronto.
	Vlad Sherbatov President of Smarter Loans \| Ontario Vlad Co-founded Smarter Loans in 2016 with the goal of helping Canadians make smarter ﬁnancial decisions. Since then, Vlad has grown the platform into one of the go-to resources for Canadian borrowers.
	Steven Uster CEO of FundThrough \| Ontario Steven is the Co-Founder & CEO of FundThrough, an invoice funding service that helps business owners eliminate “the wait” associated with payment terms by giving them the power and ﬂexibility to get their invoices paid when they want, with one click, and in as little as 24 hours.
	Dmitry Voronenko CEO of Turnkey Lender\| Singapore Dmitry, CEO and Co-founder of TurnKey Lender, holds a PhD in Artiﬁcial Intelligence. Dmitry was recently named SFA’s Fintech Leader of the year.
	Neil Wechsler CEO of Ondeck Canada \| Quebec Neil brieﬂy practiced law before becoming President and CEO of Optimal Group Inc. where he grew the company from a start-up to a leading NASDAQ-listed self-checkout and payments company. Neil later co-founded Evolocity, which in 2019 became OnDeck Canada.
	Michael Wendland CEO of Refresh \| BC Michael has led Refresh Financial’s rapid growth since its founding in 2013, including a recent ranking of number 40 on Deloitte’s Fast 500.