Starting a company as a non-technical founder means doing it all. Out of necessity, you’re covering everything from fundraising to management of the profit and loss, all things product from design to user experience, plus marketing and more—because at the early stages, it’s just you.

February 14, 2022

It's been a full court press on the Series B front these past two weeks as I've taken 25 first round meetings with various different VCs at all sizes and scales. The consistent theme has been how impressed they are at the breadth of what we've built. Supporting 5 technology platforms simultaneously (borrowers, underwriters, investors, admin, surveillance) is no small feat and we've been able to continue to ship and deliver on product enhancements across all of them on a consistent basis.

In this podcast episode, listeners are joined by Nelson Chu, the experienced serial entrepreneur and Founder/CEO of Percent, a modern credit marketplace. Nelson's journey began with his recognition of inefficiencies in private credit markets, sparking his mission to revolutionize the industry.

February 7, 2022

I'm excited to share that Anzen is officially a go. Our binding letter of intent (LOI) has been signed and the board has signed off on our strategic partnership. To top it all off, Anzen also closed on their initial pre-seed round and are using our LOI to close on their seed round, which is looking like it will wrap up in the next week or so as well.

January 31, 2022

What a week. I can't remember the last time in our company's history that we ever had such a flurry of activity in such rapid succession. Just like we had predicted, the world couldn't hear enough about us this past week. It wasn't all about press releases, it was a culmination of every teams' efforts in getting these key objectives over the finish line.

January 24, 2022

Our last two big objectives ahead of our Series B are going to be announced this week, putting an exclamation on what has been one of the most impressive months in our company's history. Both of these types of initiatives normally take up to 6 months or more to complete and we managed to pull them off in less than 3. This week you will see the press release go out about our acquisition of [ ] technology from MidCap Financial, the subsidiary of Apollo, and the release of our new brand identity across all our marketing channels (website, social, etc.).

The founder journey is a marathon not a sprint and while everyone talks about the physical toll starting a company takes on you, it's the emotional toll that is just as intense. Before Percent, I had built a consulting company called Lumenary and was fortunate enough to have Michael Cline, chairman of Accretive, as one of my clients and mentors. Working with him was an eye-opening experience that continues to shape how I view the founder journey today and why it is that we do what we do.

January 18, 2022

As we begin to think about how we as a company scale to reach that next level, one where we’re a true infrastructure solution in this market, it becomes clear that each team will need to go through a transformation from the top down to adapt to the ever changing needs of their organization.

George Catrambone, Head of Fixed Income at DWS, Lydia Boussour, Senior Economist at EY-Parthenon, and Nelson Chu, Founder and CEO of Percent join Jill Malandrino on Nasdaq TradeTalks to discuss the impact of Fed policy, inflation and strength of the economy on equity, fixed income and credit markets in 2024.

January 10, 2022

The week has finally arrived - the one where we make our intentions known that we are so much more than just another alternative investment platform. We are taking the first steps to demonstrate that this is a managed marketplace and a technology solution that makes lending happen. This week, our press release will go out announcing the release of our underwriter solution, priming our pipeline for the upcoming demos we are going to give to the prospective underwriters we've been keeping warm.

January 3, 2022

I hope you all had a wonderful and restful holiday week. We're about to get right into the thick of things as January is shaping up to be one of our biggest and most important months ever. Over the four weeks, you will see four major strategic initiatives we've been working on come to life, one after another.

Elde Guerrier, Co-Managing Partner at Guerrier Development and Nelson Chu, Founder and CEO of Percent, join Jill Malandrino on Nasdaq TradeTalks to discuss how the macro backdrop has impacted real estate and private credit markets.

Being a startup founder comes with a lot of challenges. Most founders know that starting won't be easy, but few of them are prepared that it will take much longer to get off the ground than anticipated. What's more, the product idea they begin with often won't be close to the product that eventually finds product market fit.

It's been a volatile time in markets. The combination of inflation, supply chain woes and geopolitical events have made it difficult to predict where capital markets or even the broader economy are headed. Despite these challenges, private markets and private credit in particular have held up well. In fact, according to Pitchbook, the industry’s AUM could grow to $16.1 trillion by 2027.