• StreetShares

  Participated · Equity · Mar 2015

  StreetShares is a Reston, Va.-based mission-driven financial technology company that enables financial institutions to provide loans to small businesses. Led by Mark L. Rockefeller and Mickey Konson, the company launched digital small business lending technology for banks and credit unions in 2019. Since January 2020 its client count nearly doubled to 53 financial institutions, including community banks, Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs) and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). In November 2020 StreetShares secured $10M in funding. Backers included Motley Fool Ventures, Ally Ventures and individual fintech angel investors. The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations and its business reach. StreetShares is a Washington, DC-based specialty finance company serving the military and veteran market. It provides small business loans and lines of credit and offers alternative investment products such as Veteran Business Bonds, a veterans social-impact investing product. StreetShares also offers invoice factoring and accounts receivable financing for government contractors. The company is led by CEO Mark L. Rockefeller and COO Mickey Konson. In January 2018 it completed a $23m Series B equity funding round. Brian Burke of Cooley LLP acted as counsel to StreetShares on the transaction. StreetShares is an online lender providing access to capital for small and medium-sized enterprises, originally launched as a "veterans funding veterans" platform. The company launched its direct lending business in 2014 and was co-founded by Mark Rockefeller and Mickey Konson. StreetShares recently received SEC approval to use Regulation A+ (Title IV of the JOBS Act) to offer a crowdlending product that allows non‑accredited investors to fund loans. It will initially offer loans to U.S. military members, veterans and their families and intends to scale the social lending model to the broader investment market. The marketplace offers loans from $2,000 to $100,000 with terms of 3 to 36 months; loans are said to be funded in less than a week and borrowers must have reasonable credit and be in business at least one year. The company announced a Series A first tranche of $4.5 million and is still accepting new investors. StreetShares operates a P2P small business lending marketplace that connects primarily veteran-owned small businesses with qualified retail and institutional investors. Investors compete in an online auction to fund portions of requested loans, and StreetShares aggregates the lowest bids into a single loan. The platform focuses on funding veteran-owned small businesses and facilitates retail and institutional participation. The company was launched in 2014 by Mark L. Rockefeller and Mickey Konson. StreetShares recently secured more than $200 million in funding commitments to support lending on its marketplace. Eagle Bank opened a warehouse line to support the platform's loan originations. StreetShares is a Reston, VA-based online lending platform that enables individual investors to bid to lend shares of small business loans to mainstreet businesses. The platform facilitates investor bidding on loan shares and targets small businesses seeking funding under $100k. It has a particular focus on serving the veteran-owned business community. Leadership includes CEO Mark L. Rockefeller, COO Mickey Konson, and CTO Ben Shiflet. The company positions itself as socially oriented and community-focused through participation from community bankers and veteran investors. StreetShares recently closed a $1.2M seed funding round.

• Biz2Credit & Biz2X

  Led · Equity · Dec 2014

  Biz2Credit provides an online lending platform for banks and other financial institutions to manage SMB lending processes and to make it easier and faster for SMBs to access working capital. Its software offers loan origination, servicing, monitoring, risk management and data analytics to streamline SMB and commercial lending. The company markets Biz2X, a digital lending platform with live deployments in four major markets worldwide. Biz2Credit intends to expand Biz2X through SaaS partnerships with global financial institutions and to drive growth in its marketplace lending business. Leadership includes CEO and Co‑Founder Rohit Arora and President and Co‑Founder Ramit Arora. The company was initially funded by Nexus Venture Partners and completed a $52m Series B to support continued growth and global expansion. Biz2Credit runs a peer-to-peer marketplace that underwrites, originates and services loans by vetting small-business borrowers and connecting them with institutional and bank lenders. The company uses a proprietary scorecard and analytics platform and reports a 0.7% default rate on its borrowers. Loan sizes on the platform range from $25,000 to $500,000, and roughly 70% of borrowers have been in business over three years and generate more than $1 million in revenue. Biz2Credit says it expects roughly $80 million in revenue in 2015 and is targeting an initial public offering by 2016. The firm has about 150 employees across offices in Delhi, New York, San Francisco and St. Louis and is backed by Nexus Venture Partners.

• RealtyMogul

  Led · Equity · Sep 2014

  Realty Mogul operates an online marketplace that matches investors—originally focused on accredited individuals—with real estate equity deals and increasingly institutional capital for larger loans. The marketplace launched more than two years ago and has been used to fund 240 properties totaling more than $500 million in value. The company has scaled rapidly, growing from 10 to 80 employees in the past year. Realty Mogul emphasizes sourcing exclusive deal flow that other investors may not see. Management plans to expand its technology and data science team to improve deal sourcing, analysis, and risk assessment. The platform continues to mix individual accredited investors with institutional participants to support larger transactions. The company’s core product remains its online investment marketplace connecting capital to real estate opportunities. Realty Mogul operates an online capital market that lets accredited, high‑net‑worth investors browse, back and receive regular cash distributions from real estate projects. Users only pay when a project is fully funded, and the company has moved away from the crowdfunding label. The platform reports that more than $30 million has been invested through it to date. Earlier this year Realty Mogul raised a $9 million Series A. Founder and CEO Jilliene Helman is pursuing institutional partnerships to increase platform capital and further validate Realty Mogul with real estate partners while preserving access for accredited investors. Under the new agreement the platform will randomly determine which projects are presented to individual investors and which are presented to the institutional partner. Realty Mogul is a real estate crowdfunding platform that enables accredited investors to collectively back real estate projects. The site launched a year ago and in its first year 6,000 members invested $14.6 million in projects worth more than $100 million. Members browse potential investments and capital is only committed if a project is fully funded; funded projects provide regular updates and cash distributions to investors. Realty Mogul partners with real estate investment companies that handle operational tasks such as renovating properties. CEO Jilliene Helman said increasing the number of investments available on the site is a primary goal for 2014, and the company is watching crowdfunding regulation before expanding beyond accredited investors. Canaan principal Hrach Simonian has joined Realty Mogul’s board following the financing. Realty Mogul operates an online marketplace where accredited investors can browse, sign paperwork, fund real estate investments, and track them through an investor dashboard. The company emphasizes cash flow, noting investments can pay off in months via rent checks or loan payments rather than years. Realty Mogul was incubated by the Microsoft/TechStars Accelerator in Seattle and currently lists properties in Washington and California while allowing investors to participate from anywhere. For now the platform is 100 percent focused on accredited investors and says it may open to the mass affluent after final JOBS Act regulations are released. The site has already funded its first project — AH Capital raised $110,000 on the platform to purchase and rehabilitate a duplex in Los Angeles — showing early traction. Realty Mogul announced a $500,000 seed round with participating angel investors including David S. Rose, Gordon Stephenson, and Sky Kruse.

No current team members are available.