Participated · Series C · Oct 2017

LendingHome is a San Francisco lender to real estate investors that combines technology and expert advice to help professional and first-time investors obtain financing quickly. Established in 2013, the company focuses on financing projects for real estate investors. It announced a $75M Series E round to support growth and expansion in the real estate investment market. LendingHome said it will use the funds to accelerate that growth. The company also appointed Michael Bourque as CEO; Bourque brings nearly 20 years of executive experience including leadership roles at General Electric and service as CFO of Ocwen Financial Corporation. As part of the financing, Richard Byrne of Benefit Street Partners will join LendingHome’s board. LendingHome operates a proprietary technology-driven mortgage marketplace that originates residential and high-yield bridge loans for homebuyers, property investors, and institutional and individual investors. The company is expanding its engineering team to accelerate its next-generation digital mortgage product for homebuyers and property investors. LendingHome also channels loans into externally managed investment vehicles, notably the LendingHome Opportunity Fund II, which buys residential bridge loans originated by the platform. Operating metrics reported in the article show loan volume more than doubled since the first quarter, surpassing $100 million per month and placing the company on an annual run rate of over $1 billion. Since it began lending in mid-2014, LendingHome has funded over $1.75 billion in mortgage loans and employs more than 300 people. The company has raised substantial equity to date, with total equity reaching $166 million following the announced financing. LendingHome operates a proprietary, 100% online mortgage marketplace platform that aims to simplify and speed the mortgage process for borrowers and provide attractive loans to institutional investors. The company says loans close five times faster and at one-third of the processing cost versus industry averages. Since launching in April 2014 it has originated over $100M in loans, records a 35% customer referral rate, and is lending in 13 states with a team of over 85 employees. LendingHome targets the non‑conforming mortgage opportunity and partners with credit funds, private equity firms, family offices and endowments. With the latest funding the company plans national expansion, the introduction of multiple new loan products, and enhancements to corporate infrastructure. The business was founded in October 2013 by Matt Humphrey and James Herbert and is headquartered in San Francisco.

Led · Equity · Aug 2017

Yandex.Market is an online shopping platform operated by Yandex that serves roughly 20 million users. The company is partnering with Sberbank to build a new e‑commerce ecosystem on the Yandex.Market platform. Sberbank will bring its payments infrastructure and add consumer lending to the platform, while the venture plans to improve logistics and accelerate rollout of Checkout on Yandex.Market. The proposed deal would set aside up to 10% of shares for an employee equity incentive program. Management continuity is planned: Maxim Grishakov will remain CEO and join the board. The board will include three representatives from Yandex and three from Sberbank. The transaction envisions a 60 billion ruble valuation for the platform.

Led · Debt Financing · Nov 2016

Gett provides an app-based platform that lets businesses order and manage ground transportation for employees, consolidating fragmented local services into a single corporate travel-management and expense-analysis SaaS. The company says it can save clients roughly 25–40% in travel costs and previously reported a network covering about 1,500 cities. In metros such as London and Moscow Gett operates directly; in markets without direct operations, including the U.S., it partners with third parties like Lyft. Over time Gett has shifted from consumer-facing ride-hailing to focus mainly on B2B corporate accounts and SaaS development. Management says the business is operationally profitable and is meeting its budget targets. The company plans to double down on its corporate ground-travel proposition and further develop its SaaS technology. Gett operates a B2B-focused on-demand ride-hailing service and corporate mobility SaaS, offering analytics, invoicing and ground-transport procurement to businesses. It serves roughly 15,000 corporate customers, including about one-third of the Fortune 500, and provides rides across some 1,500 cities via a mix of direct operations and third-party partnerships. Gett claims its services undercut other ground-transport options by roughly 25%. The company turned operationally profitable in December 2019, reached profitability in each of its core markets in June, and says it is on target to be cash-flow positive in 2021. Gett has shifted away from consumer growth toward corporate accounts and scales via partnerships such as a 2019 deal with Lyft while maintaining direct operations in key markets like London and Moscow. It plans to grow its corporate SaaS internationally and is considering a potential IPO as part of its expansion strategy. Gett operates a B2B-focused ride-hailing service and a corporate product called Get Business Solutions, targeting higher-end customers and companies. It runs in a limited footprint — Israel, the UK (including a service for London black cabs), Russia and New York (branded as Juno). The company emphasizes profitability discipline and projects operational profitability (EBITDA positive and breakeven) by the end of the year. As of Q4 2018, Get Business Solutions had 20,000 corporate customers, up 63% year-over-year. Gett positions itself as an alternative to larger competitors by prioritizing margin improvement alongside revenue growth and a pared-down growth strategy. The company’s New York arm, Juno, is described as contribution-margin positive and a solid number three in that market. Gett operates a ride-hailing service focused on core rides with an emphasis on business users and higher-quality service standards. The company is active in 120 cities globally, with New York, London and Moscow its biggest markets; New York and London together account for roughly half of its revenue. Gett reports a run rate of about $1 billion per year and says most revenue and profit come from its 13,000 large enterprise customers. The company enforces high driver standards (drivers must have a 4.8 rating or higher in New York) and has grown NYC largely without a marketing budget; it operates in New York as Juno after a ~$200M acquisition. Gett says the newly raised funds will bring it to profitability across all markets by Q1 of next year and allow it to focus on future milestones only after reaching profitability. Gett operates an on-demand ride service with operations in 100 cities and a strategic emphasis on business users rather than consumer rides. It partners with large corporates and established car firms, notably a strategic partnership with Volkswagen announced earlier this year. Gett delivers exclusive benefits to Sberbank customers and employees and its service is available in 57 Russian cities through that partnership. The company positions itself as a platform that brings together established car firms and ride providers instead of relying on 'anyone' becoming a driver. Gett trails far behind competitors like Uber in global footprint, revenues and funds raised, but is pursuing growth via corporate partnerships and bank financing. Financially, it has raised $622 million to date including the latest financing referenced in the article.

Led · Series B · Feb 2016

GridGain provides an enterprise-grade in-memory data fabric and software platform based on the Apache Ignite open source project, delivering speed and scale for high-volume transactions, real-time analytics and hybrid data processing. The solution connects traditional and emerging data stores (SQL, NoSQL, and Hadoop) with cloud-scale applications, enabling massive throughput and ultra-low latencies across scalable clusters of commodity servers. Its platform is used by global enterprises across financial, technology, retail, healthcare and other sectors. The company was launched in 2010 and is led by President and CEO Abe Kleinfeld. GridGain intends to use the new funding to expand sales, marketing and R&D and to accelerate continued international growth. The product roadmap and positioning emphasize accelerating real-time and high-throughput enterprise workloads. GridGain Systems builds an in-memory computing platform that enables businesses to leverage real-time big data processing for high-performance computing, streaming and database acceleration. The software integrates in-memory data and compute-grid technologies and provides accelerators for HDFS and MongoDB. It can scale from a single server to thousands of machines to handle terabytes of data in real time. The company was founded by Nikita Ivanov and Dmitriy Setrakyan and is based in Foster City, California. Its customers include Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and mobile and web companies. Following the Series B, GridGain plans to use the funds to expand sales, marketing and new product development.