November 21, 2022

This past Wednesday we held our latest board meeting and it was our first real one in months given the amount of time dedicated to fundraising this year. It was also the first time we presented our plan for the upcoming year and the key workstreams we're going to be focusing on to help make that transformation into a pure play technology company.

All in all it was a productive discussion about where we came from, why we pursued the various paths we did, and where we go from here. Each workstreams' key initiatives were carefully dissected to assess whether we were spreading ourselves too thin or if there was a realistic chance to achieve these objectives.

November 14, 2022

It's been another productive week in the books for a multitude of reasons. First, we secured another commitment for the Series B from [ ]. They are keen to figure out ways to become not just investors but users of the platform as well to syndicate their club deals where they share deal flow with the counterparts.

More importantly, as the deadline looms large, we have locked in our timeline to refinance our venture debt with the Tier 1 investment bank. They've committed to take down $[ ]M, extend the term out for 18 months, and syndicate out the remaining $[ ]M to our investors.

November 7, 2022

We went into the weekend with another $[ ]M commitment into our Series B from a new fintech focused fund that has been incredibly impressed with what we've built and the impact the platform can have on this very analog industry. We are now over the 2 month mark since the term sheet was signed and we're slowly but surely chipping away at the $[ ]M total we're aiming for, with a target for firm commitments and a final order book to be locked in before Thanksgiving. This market has made it one of the most challenging fundraising markets ever as many VCs are simply not deploying capital, others are promising a commitment and then downsizing it materially, and others are even committing and then backing out.

Nik Milanovic interviews Nelson Chu, founder of Percent, a private credit platform. Nelson shares his journey from starting in tech at Apple in 2007, through his finance roles at Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and BlackRock, to founding multiple companies, including Lumenary and My Support. He discusses the inception of Percent in 2018, which has facilitated over $1 billion in transactions. Nelson emphasizes the importance of standardization in private credit, the role of venture capital in scaling his ventures, and his involvement in nonprofits like Yama Yama Malawi and Womankind. He also touches on his passion for art collection.

October 31, 2022

A key part of our growth story in 2023 is going to have to come from increasing our total assets outstanding, regardless of whether we're underwriting the transaction or not. With our marketplace, we have the opportunity to generate revenue from borrowers, investors, and now underwriters as well.

October 24, 2022

It's been quite the hectic week and a half as we've managed to squeeze in 3 conferences back to back. ABS East, Opal's Family Office Conference, and Money 20/20. It's also a bit of a coming out party for us as this is the first stretch of conferences where we've had the chance to demo our platforms from end to end.

At ABS East, the team collectively took ~30 scheduled meetings over two days in Miami, predominantly with prospective underwriters.

October 17, 2022

The senior leadership team has had several productive meetings this week around 2023 strategic planning. The outcome of this is several workstreams that are going to be further developed over the next few weeks and presented in detail at our next all hands in November.

October 11, 2022

It's been a good week on the Series B front. As the final docs were signed and we began to take in wires, we also had several new commitments come through as well. These commitments were years in the making, with both dating back to 2019 when they first diligenced us.

The first fund has partners that all come from traditional finance. They saw us initially when we were touting ourselves as being able to power the future of digital assets for private credit markets, which we pivoted from shortly thereafter.

In this episode, I’m diving into how Percent helped one of our borrowers reduce their cost of capital by over 400 basis points while accessing $7 million in debt financing. I’ll walk you through how our platform empowered this borrower to grow, how we brought retail investors alongside institutions in this deal, and why this success story matters for the future of private credit. Tune in to get an inside look at how we’re leveling the playing field for investors and borrowers alike.

October 3, 2022

As our Series B is slated to close soon, we have the question of our venture debt outstanding that we need to figure out what to do with. The terms on the $[ ] we raised via our platform stipulated that the debt would have to be refinanced either when we close our Series B or by December 15th, whichever one comes first. We have been actively looking towards institutional venture debt providers to take over the debt in order to extend the maturity out much longer and reduce the exposure our platform investors have in the deal.

September 26, 2022

As we approach year end and with the Series B closing process underway, it’s time to begin to map out what 2023 will look like for us. This upcoming year will be unlike the past as we have no more excuses, no more foundational work left to do. This is the year where we pull all the growth levers we have at our disposal to deliver on a lofty target for recurring technology revenue.

September 19, 2022

You may have heard this past week about one of the largest acquisitions ever made of a private company - Adobe buys Figma for $20B, about 50x their current year ARR. The media loves to highlight the final number but behind the scenes was a 12 year journey where the future was not always so bright or definitely not so certain. 

In 2018, I'm tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, frantically trying to get Percent off the ground. Fast-forward to 2022, and we're staring at a bank account with barely anything left and a $350,000 payroll looming in just days. Yet by 2023, we closed an oversubscribed series B round, found our product-market fit and saw our marketplace take flight. This roller-coaster ride is not an unfamiliar story.

September 12, 2022

As we move the Series B towards a close, the next phase of our company's life becomes all the more exciting but also all the more critical. The strategic decisions and moves we make in the coming months will reverberate over the next few years, having material implications for our future success.

In this debut episode of Founder Notes, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my journey to build Percent. I was tens of thousands in credit card debt when I decided to take the leap and create something new in the private credit space. In this episode, I talk about the lessons learned from that experience, my family’s influence on my entrepreneurial mindset, and why I believe in building in public. Get a first-hand look at the raw realities of founding a disruptive fintech platform.