Lendio was founded in 2011. Co-founders Brock Blake and Trent Miskin saw small businesses struggling to get the financing they need to grow and run their businesses. As champions of entrepreneurship, Brock and Trent believed they could make access to capital simpler and quicker for small business owners, and they built a successful company around this mission. Now home to the nation’s leading small business loan marketplace, Lendio provides a one-stop-shop for thousands of business owners looking for capital to start, operate, and grow. Lendio creates win-win scenarios for lenders by digitizing the application and underwriting processes and offering a best-in-class customer experience for their borrowers.
Lendio is the nation’s leading small business finance solutions provider. Designed to help small business owners access and manage capital, Lendio matches small business owners with the right lender and loan to meet their needs. Lendio also offers a freemium bookkeeping platform, Sunrise, that allows business owners to send invoices, collect payments, track expenses, and manage their cash flow. Additionally, Lendio provides banks, credit unions, and online lenders access to a custom, white-labeled application that allows the financial institution to accept loan applications online. Lenders can outsource their customer-facing sales function to Lendio, harnessing Lendio’s knowledge of loan products and small business needs, as well as its ability to increase customer conversion rates.
Currently, Lendio has over 450 full-time employees based in or around its offices in Lehi, Utah, and Woodbury, New York, as well as dozens of remote employees around the country. Lendio brings on temporary-to-hire employees to help with important initiatives including facilitating Paycheck Protection Program loans.
As of 2020, 99.9% of United States businesses are small businesses. The nation’s 31.7 million small businesses employ over 47% of American workers. However, many businesses struggle to access capital as traditional lenders prioritize long-standing customers. Minority-owned and women-owned businesses find themselves particularly underserved in traditional financing. Lendio’s goal is to close the credit gap for these businesses and make access to capital more inclusive.
Small business owners use business loans for an array of expenses. The most common uses of funds among Lendio customers include working capital, equipment, business expansion, payroll, and real estate.
There are a wide variety of financing options for small businesses. Some of the most popular forms of business capital are term loans, SBA loans, accounts receivable financing, lines of credit, equipment financing, and merchant cash advances.
The most common industries in search of capital are construction, restaurants, retail, healthcare, and transportation.
Traditionally, lenders look at standard qualifiers to determine creditworthiness. These can include personal and business credit scores, time in business, industry, and revenue. However, there are a number of growing non-bank lenders and non-profit lenders who are bypassing these traditional metrics and have their own requirements for loans.
SBA loans are loans guaranteed by the federal Small Business Association, mitigating the default risk to the lender. This guarantee makes it easier for younger businesses, or business owners who lack credit, to be approved.
