Kabbage

Last updated
Kabbage
Kabbage logo.png
Type of site
Financial services
Owner American Express
Created by
Revenue Increase2.svg $200 million(2017)
LaunchedFebruary 12, 2009;14 years ago (2009-02-12)
Current statusOnline

Kabbage, Inc. was an online financial technology company based in Atlanta, Georgia. [1] The company provided funding directly to small businesses and consumers through an automated lending platform. [2] In 2020, the company was acquired by American Express and its mobile app was rebranded to American Express Business Blueprint. [3]

Contents

History

Kabbage publicly launched and began providing loans in May 2011. [4] In 2012, it opened its San Francisco office and subsequently raised US$30 million in Series C financing. [5] [6] Beginning in February 2013, the company expanded internationally, entering the United Kingdom [7] and raising further debt financing. [8] Between 2014 and 2017, the company raised a further $435M in equity funding, and $970M in debt financing.

At its peak, Kabbage was lending over $1B each year to small businesses.

On October 16, 2020, Kabbage was acquired by American Express and was subsequently rebranded to American Express Business Blueprint. [3]

In October 2022, Kabbage filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following a report by the United States Congress that revealed it had facilitated large numbers of fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program payouts during the COVID-19 pandemic. [9] [10] [11]

Product

Kabbage provided small businesses with debt facilities. In March 2020, Kabbage suspended lending services for active and new customers in favor of offering loans to U.S. businesses through the PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) introduced as part of the Trump administration's COVID-19 economic stimulus package. [12]

Related Research Articles

LendingTree is an online lending marketplace, founded in 1996 and headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The business platform allows potential borrowers to connect with multiple loan operators to find optimal terms for loans, credit cards, deposit accounts, insurance, etc. LendingTree allows borrowers to shop and compare competitive rates and terms across an array of financial products. Other additional services include financing tools, comparative loan searches and borrowing information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Credit Sesame</span> American financial services company

Credit Sesame is a credit and loan company. Credit Sesame was launched in private beta at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010. By 2012, the company claimed to monitor almost $35 billion in loans.

GoodLeap, formerly Loanpal, is a finance technology company that provides financing options for the residential solar energy industry. The company was founded in 2003 as Paramount Equity and was later rebranded to Loanpal. In June 2021, the company rebranded to GoodLeap. As of 2020, the company was responsible for 41% of the solar loan market in the U.S. and is the top solar lender in the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AngelList</span> Website connecting startups, angel investors, and job-seekers

AngelList is a U.S. website for fundraising and connecting startups, angel investors, and limited partners. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge. Created by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.

Thryv is a publicly traded software as a service (SaaS) company, providing customer relationship management and online reputation management software for small businesses. It has headquarters in Dallas and Texas, and operates in 48 states across the United States of America with more than 2,400 employees. The company began as a conglomerate of Yellow Pages companies. In June 2020, Thryv reported $1.3 billion in revenue over a twelve-month period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LendUp</span> American financial technology company

LendUp was an American online direct lender. It offered payday loans, installment loans, and credit cards to consumers with low credit scores using publicly available data to assess creditworthiness. The company referred to its customers as “the emerging middle class.” LendUp also issued credit cards in partnership with Tom Steyer's Beneficial State Bank.

SoFi Technologies, Inc. is an American online personal finance company and online bank. Based in San Francisco, SoFi provides financial products including student loan refinancing, mortgages, personal loans, credit card, investing, and banking through both mobile app and desktop interfaces.

լոքշա

Avant, LLC, formerly AvantCredit, is a private Chicago, Illinois-based company in the financial technology industry. The company was established in 2012 by serial entrepreneur Albert "Al" Goldstein, John Sun, and Paul Zhang. Initially structured as a mid-prime lender, the company issued its first personal unsecured loan in early 2013 using its proprietary technology to determine an individual's creditworthiness.

LendKey is a lending platform and online marketplace that allows consumers to apply for and receive private student loans, student loan refinancing and home improvement loans from their local credit unions and community banks. LendKey's cloud-based tools and infrastructure enable the nation's 13,000+ community financial institutions to enter online lending and offer loans for various asset classes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gusto (company)</span>

Gusto, Inc. is a company that provides a cloud-based payroll, benefits, and human resource management software for businesses based in the United States. Gusto handles payments to employees, and contractors and also handles electronically the paperwork necessary to help client companies comply with tax, labor, and immigration laws. Gusto is operational in all 50 US states.

LendEDU is an online marketplace for a variety of financial products, including student loans, personal loans, and credit cards. It has been compared to Lendingtree.com, but for student lending. In 2018, LendEDU encountered controversy when it was revealed to be the undisclosed owner of "Student Loan Report", and its CEO was accused of "deceiving news organizations with a fake source".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Funding Societies</span>

Funding Societies is a Southeast Asia’s digital financing platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), headquartered in Singapore. It was the first such platform in Singapore to engage an escrow agency to independently and safely manage investors’ funds. In Indonesia it is known as Modalku. Since its launch, it has disbursed more than US$2.6 billion in business financing to MSMEs through more than 5.1 million loan transactions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PayU</span> Fintech company that provides payment solutions to online merchants.

PayU is a Netherlands-based payment service provider to online merchants. The company was founded in 2002, and is headquartered in Hoofddorp. It allows online businesses to accept and process payments through payment methods that can be integrated with web and mobile applications. As of 2018, the service is available in 17 countries. The firm is owned by the Naspers Group, which also owns a stake in one of its sister companies, Tencent.

Biz2Credit is an online financing platform for small businesses. The company provides direct funding to small businesses across the United States. The company is known for its financing products, educational resources for business such as the BizAnalyzer, and research that it publishes periodically, including the Small Business Lending Index, and its subsidiary SaaS business lending platform Biz2X.

Utah-based Lendio, founded in 2011 by Brock Blake and Trent Miskin, is a free online loan marketplace in the U.S. targeting small business owners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freestyle Capital</span> Venture capital firm

Freestyle Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. General Partners Dave Samuel and Jenny Lefcourt are both entrepreneurs who entered venture capital after founding multiple companies. The firm was founded in 2009 and typically invests in 10-12 companies per year with an average investment between $1.5 million to $3 million. Previous investments include Intercom, Patreon, Narvar, Digit, Betterup, Airtable and Snapdocs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paycheck Protection Program</span> U.S. federal government business loan program

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a $953-billion business loan program established by the United States federal government during the Trump administration in 2020 through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to help certain businesses, self-employed workers, sole proprietors, certain nonprofit organizations, and tribal businesses continue paying their workers.

Upgrade, Inc. is an American neobank founded in 2016. It has raised $600 million in equity funding and made over $10 billion in loans since its launch in 2017. Upgrade is headquartered in San Francisco, California with offices in Phoenix, Arizona and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The company offers credit and banking products to consumers and delivers fixed-rate credit cards and loans. The company's other services include credit monitoring and education tools.

EarnIn is a financial services company that provides earned wage access services. Founded as Activehours in 2013, the app launched in May 2014. The company's business model, which is based on users paying voluntary "tips" to withdraw earned wages ahead of time, has been compared to payday lending services. It expanded its services in 2019 to include negotiating with doctors and hospitals to lower its users' medical bills. In 2020, EarnIn acquired and implemented a new savings feature, Tip Yourself.

References

  1. "Report: Atlanta's Kabbage in talks to be bought by American Express". American City Business Journals . Retrieved 2020-11-03.
  2. O'Brien, Sara Ashley (17 July 2014). "Banks won't lend? Use these guys instead". CNN Money. CNN.
  3. 1 2 Treece, Kiah; Tarver, Jordan (February 21, 2022). "Kabbage Business Loans Review 2022". Forbes Advisor. Retrieved June 30, 2022.
  4. Williams, Charles (9 April 2014). "Kabbage raises USD270m from credit facility". Reuters.
  5. Rao, Leena (18 September 2012). "Data-Focused Online Merchant Lender Kabbage Raises $30M From UPS, SV Angel And Others". TechCrunch.
  6. "2012 Red Herring North America: Winners". Red Herring. Retrieved on 2014-11-20.
  7. Rao, Leena (12 February 2013). "Kabbage Brings Data-Focused Online Merchant Lending To The UK". TechCrunch.
  8. Rao, Leena (3 April 2013). "Kabbage Raises $75M In Debt To Fund Online Merchants On Amazon, eBay, And Etsy". TechCrunch.
  9. "Loan Platform Kabbage Files for Bankruptcy Amid PPP Investigations". Wall Street Journal. October 4, 2022.
  10. "Hundreds of PPP Loans Went to Fake Farms in Absurd Places". ProPublica . May 18, 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
  11. "A congressional report says financial technology companies fueled rampant PPP fraud". NPR . 6 December 2022. Retrieved 2022-12-07.
  12. Faux, Zeke; Surane, Jenny. "SoftBank-Backed Lender Kabbage Cuts Off Businesses As Cash Needs Mount". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 4 April 2020. Retrieved 21 April 2020.