Kabbage

Kabbage
Web address www.kabbage.com
Slogan Fund Your Business. Today!
Type of site
 Financial Services
Owner Privately Held
Created by
  • Rob Frohwein
  • Marc Gorlin
  • Kathryn Petralia
Launched February 12, 2009
Current status Online

Kabbage, Inc. is an online financing technology and data company based in Atlanta, Georgia that lends money to small businesses and consumers. The company simplified the lengthy, manual loan application process to one that is 100% online and automated. Businesses and consumers can use their own data to submit an application online and receive an immediate answer.

In 2009, Kabbage, Inc. was established in 2009 by current CEO Rob Frohwein, Chairman Marc Gorlin, and COO Kathryn Petralia.[1] They developed a financial services data and technology platform to provide funding to small businesses. Kabbage uses data from business checking accounts, accounting software, payment processors, UPS shipping data, and other online tools including large ecommerce sites like eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, and the Yahoo! Store to reach small businesses looking for loans. Kabbage has tens of thousands of customers, 80 percent of which are repeat users.[2]

An advance from Kabbage ranges between $500 and $100,000 based on a number of data factors, including business volume, time in business, transaction volume, social media activity, and the seller’s credit score.[3] Kabbage developed Social Klimbing as a way to generate a Kabbage Skore for its customers, which is utilized like a social media credit score. Kabbage's customers typically utilize advances for inventory purchases, upgrading systems, and marketing.[4]

In April 2012, Kabbage, Inc. opened its San Francisco office and named former RingCentral and Travelocity CMO Victoria Treyger as its Chief Marketing Officer.[5]

In February 2013, Kabbage, Inc. launched its funding platform in the United Kingdom.[6]

In September 2014, Kabbage, Inc. leveraged the same technology and data platform to launch Karrot personal loans.[7] Karrot is the only fully automated personal loan product that can verify 100% of a person’s income. Karrot also provides an immediate answer and access to funds as soon as the next day.

Recent Coverage

The New York Times described how Kabbage funds businesses that find it difficult to get financing from traditional banks.[8] Kabbage also utilizes social data in its underwriting decisions. Christine Pratt was quoted as liking the impact of social data when being underwritten for financing. "Are customers saying that you are doing a good job? Are consumers complaining about you?" [9]

Investors

As of its last round of funding, Kabbage has raised more than $56 million. Kabbage is venture funded and backed by Thomvest Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and BlueRun Ventures, and is debt funded by Victory Park Capital, with additional investors including: David Bonderman, founder of TPG Capital, Warren Stephens, CEO of Stephens Inc., the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, TriplePoint Ventures, and Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square.[10][11][12] In April 2014 Kabbage closed a $270 million credit facility from Guggenheim Securities, the investment banking and capital markets division of Guggenheim Partners.[13]

Partnerships

In February 2012, Kabbage and UPS entered into an agreement to let small businesses direct UPS to share their shipping histories with Kabbage. This gives Kabbage visibility into the entire volume of shipping business their customers conduct. Currently, Kabbage does not see sales for offline or mail order sales. The larger volume can potentially make it possible for Kabbage customers to obtain more capital at lower rates.[2] In addition, Kabbage entered into a partnership with Intuit QuickBooks in Spring 2013, which enables QuickBooks users to get quick access to Kabbage Cash. Kabbage is able to reach the millions of QuickBooks users through this partnership.

Awards

In May 2012, Kabbage was named a Red Herring 100 North American Winner, which recognizes the top private companies in the Americas. The award focuses on identifying companies who have developed sustainable, long-term innovations and are positioned to grow at an explosive rate.[14] CEO Rob Frohwein was also Selected as a Top Innovator by Bank Technology News.[15]

Kabbage was selected by PYMNTS.com as one of the Most Innovative Companies for 2012.

In November 2012, Kabbage won the VentureBeat CloudBeat Innovation Showdown

In February 2013, Fast Company named Kabbage one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Finance, along with platforms like PayPal and Square.[16] In March, Kabbage was named among the Top B2B Innovations by PYMNTS.com.

In January 2014, Forbes named Kabbage one of the Top 100 Most Promising Companies.

References

  1. ↑ Meet the Kabbage executive team. Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Kabbage, A Funding Source for Ecommerce Merchants. Practical Ecommerce (2012-03-20). Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  3. ↑ Crosman, Penny. (2012-02-15) Kabbage Crunches UPS Shipping Data to Approve Small Business Credit. American Banker Article. Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  4. ↑ Small Business Plan with Kabbage Funding - Technorati Small Business. Technorati.com (2011-05-21). Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  5. ↑ Kabbage opening San Francisco office, names CMO - Atlanta Business Chronicle. Bizjournals.com. Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  6. ↑ Kabbage brings its quick fix loans to UK merchants. VentureBeat. Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  7. ↑ With Karrot, Kabbage Digs Into Lending Club's and Prosper's Consumer Loan Business. TechCrunch Retrieved on 2014-09-30.
  8. ↑ "Obtaining a Loan From Lenders Who Review Your Tweets Along With Your Books". New York Times. Retrieved 24 January 2014.
  9. ↑ "A Company's Tweets Can Help Make It Creditworthy". NPR. Retrieved 24 January 2014.
  10. ↑ Home. Tpg.com. Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  11. ↑ UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund. Ups.com. Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  12. ↑ Online Merchant Lender Kabbage Raises Another $12 Million. TechCrunch (2011-12-13). Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  13. ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/09/kabbage-270m-loans/
  14. ↑ 2012 Red Herring North America: Winners Red Herring. Retrieved on 2014-11-20.
  15. ↑ Kabbage CEO Selected as a Top Innovator by Bank Technology News. Bloomberg (2012-05-01). Retrieved on 2013-09-04.
  16. ↑ The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Finance | Fast Company | Business + Innovation. Fast Company (2013-02-11). Retrieved on 2013-09-04.

External links