On The Line With BlueVine After a Big Year
March 13, 2017
Helping businesses get paid on their invoices faster is a big market. So big, in fact, that when I met up with BlueVine CEO Eyal Lifshitz at LendIt last week, his company had just recently secured a $75 million warehouse credit line with Fortress. BlueVine had also just come off of a big year in which they provided more than $200 million to small businesses, earning them a spot in our rankings.
BlueVine’s success comes at a time when some in the online lending space have lost their luster. Lifshitz feels his company, however, is positioned well. “The time of exuberance has disappeared,” Lifshitz says. “Investors are looking to create value.”
Part of what makes them different is that they not only factor invoices, but they also provide lines of credit to prime and near-prime customers. Factoring is still a bigger percentage of their overall business, Lifshitz says, but he asserts that their credit line segment is growing at a faster clip. And he insists that they are working on other products too, not just loans. It sounds like the beginnings of a bank, I tell him, while making references to SoFi and their ability to live on the threshold of banking without actually currently being one.
“People have been saying that PayPal would become a bank forever but they haven’t become one,” he points out.
Still, running a company as big as his does require prudent decisions. “We are very mindful of how we manage capital,” he says. I ask if he thinks his business model protects them from an economic downturn. “It doesn’t protect it,” he asserts. Instead, he explains, his model gives him the ability to make adjustments rapidly. Since BlueVine’s capital is typically repaid in a matter of months, they can react to economic changes quickly.
Big name backers aren’t afraid to show that they believe in this either since they have been funded by Lightspeed Venture Partners, 83NORTH, Correlation Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Rakuten Fintech Fund and other private investors. A recent announcement by BlueVine says that they are on track to fund approximately $500 million to small businesses in 2017.
Fintech Startup BlueVine Raises $49 Million in Series D Funding
December 14, 2016- The company has provided more than $200M in financing to thousands of businesses
- In response to customer demand BlueVine is increasing credit lines to $2 million for invoice factoring and $100,000 for business lines of credit
- Company is expanding strategic relationships with partners like Intuit
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (December 14, 2016) BlueVine, a leading online provider of everyday financing to small businesses, announced today it has closed $49 million in funding. The Series D funding round was led by existing investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83North, Citi Ventures, Rakuten FinTech Fund and Silicon Valley Bank.
Since launching in March 2014, BlueVine’s cloud-based financing solutions have helped thousands of small businesses obtain quick, easy access to the funds they need to purchase inventory, cover expenses and expand operations.
We are very proud of all we’ve accomplished in 2016 and excited to continue on our incredible growth trajectory, said Eyal Lifshitz, CEO and founder of BlueVine. BlueVine is delivering unprecedented ease and convenience to meet SMB owners¹ financing needs and help them achieve their goals.
This financing will support BlueVine’s rapid growth as it expands its team and range of offerings. BlueVine has already funded more than $200 million in working capital for SMBs and is on track to fund more than $500 million in working capital during 2017.
This team continues to push the pace of innovation to deliver best-in-class everyday financing products, said Yoni Cheifetz of Lightspeed Venture Partners. We are delighted to have supported BlueVine’s journey to date and thrilled to enable them to bring their vision to thousands more SMBs across the country.
BlueVine’s business line of credit has proven to be very popular with QuickBooks users, said Rania Succar, business leader of QuickBooks Financing. It fills a critical part of the QuickBooks Financing portfolio and allows us to extend credit to younger businesses. We are excited about expanding our partnership to serve even more QuickBooks SMBs with BlueVine’s business line of credit.
BlueVine also announced it has once again increased its maximum credit lines based on client demand:
- For invoice factoring the maximum credit limit has been increased from $250,000 to $2,000,000
- For the business line of credit the maximum credit limit has been increased from $50,000 to $100,000
BlueVine offers credit lines starting at $5,000 for a business line of credit and $20,000 for invoice factoring.
About BlueVine
BlueVine offers small businesses financing solutions to access the funds they need to purchase inventory, cover expenses or expand operations. BlueVine was the first factoring company to develop a fully online, cloud-based platform for invoice factoring, enabling rapid advances on outstanding invoices due in 7-90 days and bringing a 4,000-year-old industry into the digital age. BlueVine also offers Flex Credit, an on-demand, revolving line of credit through the same online platform. With BlueVine, business owners can focus on growing their business instead of worrying about their bank account. BlueVine is funded by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Citi Ventures, 83North, Correlation Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Rakuten Fintech Fund and other private investors.
About Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners is an early stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 300 companies globally. The Firm currently manages over $4 billion of committed capital and invests in the U.S. and internationally, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India and China. www.lsvp.com
Press Contact
Amberly Asay
BlueVine Public Relations
801-461-9776
bluevine@methodcommunications.com
Morgan Stanley Backs Online Lender Affirm with $100 Million in Debt
October 13, 2016Consumer lending startup Affirm aims to replace credit card purchases with personal loans and has found a backer in Morgan Stanley.
Founded by former PayPal CTO and entrepreneur Max Levchin, Affirm secured a $100 million credit line from Morgan Stanley to expand its lending capacity. This latest round of financing totals the company’s fundraising to about $525 million in cash and debt financing with a $800 million valuation.
Affirm’s consumers are typically immigrants and recent college grads who do not own credit cards and have no credit history, who take out loans for big dollar online purchases like high end furniture, jewelry and gym equipment.
Affirm partners with ecommerce and internet service companies like Expedia, Casper Sleep and Eventbrite to offer personal loans (10-30 percent APR to be paid back within 12 months) to buyers at checkout.
The San Francisco-based company’s loans are funded by Cross River Bank and its investors include marquee Silicon Valley names like Lightspeed Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Andreesen Horowitz.
“The financial industry has managed to avoid significant disruptive innovation since the mid-90s, and we are working hard to change that. Our first goal is to bring simplicity, transparency, and fair pricing to consumer credit,” says Levchin on the company website. Is replacing credit card debt with personal loans a way to go about it?
Peter Thiel’s Fund Invests $100M in Consumer Lending Startup Affirm
April 15, 2016
There’s another unsecured consumer loan lender on the block and it raised $100 million from PayPal founder, Peter Thiel.
Thiel invested in long time friend and PayPal cofounder Max Levchin’s startup Affirm which finances online purchases like high end furniture, jewelry and gym equipment to be paid back in monthly installments.
Thiel’s Founders Fund led the latest round, bringing the total capital raised by Affirm to $425 million since 2013. Affirm’s consumers are typically immigrants and recent college grads who do not own credit cards and have no credit history.
The San Francisco-based company’s loans are funded by Cross River Bank and its investors include marquee Silicon Valley names like Lightspeed Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Andreesen Horowitz.
“The financial industry has managed to avoid significant disruptive innovation since the mid-90s, and we are working hard to change that. Our first goal is to bring simplicity, transparency, and fair pricing to consumer credit,” says Levchin on the company website.
Affirm is just one of the many upstarts that are eager to bring ease into people’s financial lives. Another millennial lender, Pave Inc recently raised $8 million from Maxfield Capital that included existing investors C4 Ventures and Seer Capital. The four year old company lends unsecured personal loans, typically used for skill-based vocational training offered at institutions like General Assembly.
To provide some bird’s eye view context, recent data from Transunion showed that most borrowers securing personal loans jumped close to 30 percent in recent years, to 13.72 million in 2015 from 10.57 million in 2013, with 24 million Americans likely to obtain one this year alone.
With more loans comes the probability of more defaults? Data from Transunion further noted that In 2015, the average balance was $7,235, up more than 7 percent from the year earlier. As more money is available for lending, lenders are going after borrowers that might be otherwise deemed subprime by credit reporting standards like FICO scores. Companies like Affirm, Avant and Prosper loans have thus created propriety credit risk models which they claim go beyond traditional credit metrics and assess a consumer’s ability based on filters like the school they attend, rents, utilities etc.
