Nelson Chu is the founder and CEO of Percent, a global leader in financial infrastructure solutions. Founded in 2018, the company leverages proprietary technologies, integrations, and data to bring first-of-its-kind transparency and efficiency to lenders and credit transactions. Prior to Percent, he founded a strategy consulting firm specializing in helping companies build products and raise capital for growth, creating over $1B in equity value. He began his career at several of the top financial services firms, including Bank of America and BlackRock. He is an active angel investor, with notable investments including Anthropic, BlockFi, Care/Of (Acq: Bayer AG), Clover Health (NAS: CLOV), dv01, Eden Health, Plentina, Tala, and Uala.

Anchored by high yields, shorter-term investments, and being newly open to all accredited investors, the rise of private credit is still climbing. Doubling in size as an asset class over the past 5 years, private credit assets are expected to hit $2.3 trillion by 2027. Booms like this almost always pose questions: Is this sustainable growth?

We often compare founding a company to raising a child. There's pride, a refusal to admit we don’t know everything from the start and a whole lot of growth—not just for the company but for us as founders.

The founder journey is fraught with challenges, primarily because a founder’s role evolves out of necessity as the company matures. From bootstrapping an idea to a successful exit, founders constantly adapt their focus and apply their skills—both technical and emotional—to meet the company’s needs at each phase.

June 21, 2022

One of the biggest releases these past few weeks has been the new syndication process that our Capital Markets team is now actively using and our third party underwriters will be starting to use very soon. The past few deals have been incredibly fascinating to watch as some have gone exactly according to plan and others have forced us to rethink how we market and attract investment into these opportunities.

June 13, 2022

What an incredible run of progress on our platform these past few weeks. We knew June was going to be big and it's shaping up to be a banner month with all the feature releases that have been pushed out. We've been touting our new syndication process, we've been talking about being able to offer default protection, we've been clamoring for a full transaction history, and in the span of three weeks we've been able to push all of it out.

Listen to this informative Legacy Leaders episode with Nelson Chu about private credit investing. Here is what to expect on this week’s show:

● Nelson explains Private Credit Investing offers uncorrelated returns and higher yields compared to traditional savings accounts. Private credit portfolios are usually pools of loans, providing diversification and risk mitigation for investors.

● Nelson emphasizes diversification is crucial in private credit investments through blended notes and diversified baskets of loans. By spreading investments across multiple lenders and loans, investors can access higher yields while minimizing the impact of defaults on individual loans, making diversification a key strategy in private credit investments.

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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.