June 6, 2022

After we paused our Series B process, I made it a point to let the handful of VCs who did extensive diligence on us know that I would be keeping them in the loop on all of our progress. With the release of the underwriter product last week, it felt like the appropriate time to share an update on how the last few months have evolved.

May 31, 2022

It was a whirlwind of a week heading into the long weekend as the LendIt conference is traditionally one of our strongest showings. Credit to the team who attended as they took over 100 meetings in 2 days and had countless in-person conversations with people who stopped by our booth. This was the first time we really had the opportunity to sell our underwriter offering and it was incredibly well received.

May 23, 2022

As the market conditions continue to evolve, we're keeping a close eye on what VCs are expecting of us when it comes to a Series B. The simple truth is that best of breed companies still continue to get funded and oftentimes at reasonable valuations. We have been extremely careful to not over-raise and also not raise at valuations that are problematic down the line if we can't live up to those expectations. With our Series A valuing us at [ ], our current revenue trajectory for 2022 has us far exceeding this prior round valuation even in this environment, one where many companies are taking a downround and raising a new round at a valuation that's less than the prior round.

May 16, 2022

We continue to make good progress on [ ] and we will soon be able to offer the first ever credit protection product for private credit markets. To start, we're going to be layering it into just our blended notes and not a note for any individual borrower as we want to ensure that in the event of a default, we don't damage their long term prospects for success. We're tracking well towards launching the first blended note with credit protection coverage on June 1st.  There's been a few key developments in recent weeks that are making all of this possible.

Not long ago, a rapidly growing startup needed financing. Traditional banks hesitated, bound by stricter regulations. Enter private credit: a bespoke loan structured to match their growth trajectory was secured within weeks. Private credit innovations like this aren't just stopgaps—they’re fueling tomorrow's business.

May 9, 2022

This week is a very special one as we come together to celebrate four years of our company's life. It's been four years of trying to reinvent private credit markets from the ground up. Four years of learning, testing, building, shipping, and doing it all over again. And most important of all, four years of bringing together a world class team that I would argue rivals the best of any company out there.

As we revert back to the mean from an unprecedented fundraising environment and recover from the whiplash of going from frothy markets with inflated multiples to frozen IPOs and increased rates, there’s a lot to consider in the world of fundraising.

The first step is realizing that the post-pandemic fundraising environment that inflated returns and involved little to no due diligence isn’t coming back. This 'new normal' is a regression back to what fundraising has been for years—a return to the basics of raising venture capital. So, what does it take to re-adapt?

May 2, 2022

Our webinar last week highlighted the first of a few underwriters who are gearing up to join the platform when we officially launch the Underwriter portal to the public in a few weeks time. This is a watershed moment for our company, one where our ability to live up to the hype and realize our vision of becoming an infrastructure provider is realized for the very first time. We're incredibly fortunate to have the likes of underwriters like [ ] and several others in our pipeline who have the skillset, the network, and the desire to seek out innovation in an industry that's as archaic as they come.

Today we have interviewed an amazing startup called Percent, which has revolutionized the private credit marketplace with its cutting-edge technology.

Founded in 2018, Percent is streamlining how investments and loans are managed in the private credit sector. Their platform brings the efficiency of public markets to the previously traditional and manual private credit market.

April 25, 2022

Coming off of a quarter where we only had [ ] new borrower join the platform and just [ ] onboard in the past two quarters, we made it a priority in April to push new borrowers forward. As a result of that, in April alone we've already launched [ ], are slated to launch another before the end of the week, and are in the final stages of discussions for another that is navigating some final legal hurdles as a result of having a co-underwriter.

April 18, 2022

As we cross the middle of the month, we are tracking well on the objectives we laid out in the all-hands. One of the big focuses this month was on getting Underwriter out the door and ready for prime time in May for third party underwriters to use for the very first time. Credit to the Product and Engineering teams for going heads down and reprioritizing what needs to get done to help hit this target, especially given how many dependencies were tied to getting this out the door.

In the past few years, we’ve seen a venture market like no other. A short-term blip of capital constraints and a new normal of working remotely for startups during a global pandemic gave way to a market of fundraising excess, the likes of which we have never seen before. Disrupting the norm, this was a time when money was cheap and multiples were high—it seemed like there was no limit to the rising valuations. In fact, according to Statista, the value of venture capital funds raised in the U.S. rose from $89.4 billion in 2020 to over $155 million in 2021.

April 11, 2022

One of the core values of our company is to be transparent with all of you around not just positive and developmental feedback for you individually but also how we are doing as a company. More than just doing an all-hands, my job and the management team's job is to hold ourselves accountable how we are tracking towards our objectives for the year and for you to know how we're progressing. To that end, we are re-tooling our weekly standups to be extremely tactical, focused on the major objectives for the year (e.g. revenue targets) and critical objectives for the month that unlock our other objectives for the rest of the year.

April 4, 2022

Coming out of our all-hands on Friday, our objectives for the next month leading into the rest of the year are more clear than ever. I encourage all of you to look at these 2022 Strategic Initiatives in detail, either in PDF form or on Monday. Above all else, what's important to highlight is just how important each and every one of you are in bringing these objectives to life.

March 28, 2022

As we wrap up Q1, our objectives for the rest of the year are becoming all the more clear. Many of these initiatives are ones that span across teams and everyone will have to work together to execute these to perfection. A high level overview is below and I will be outlining them in much more detail in our all-hands on Friday this week.