NerdWallet acquires small business loan marketplace Fundera

Financial guidance company NerdWallet announced at the end of last week that it has acquired Fundera. New York City-based Fundera was co-founded in 2013 by Jared Hecht, who previously co-founded GroupMe. It created a marketplace where small businesses could find loans, subsequently expanding into other areas like legal services, while also (like NerdWallet) offering free financial content.

“It can be the wild wild west out there for small business owners,” Hecht said in a statement. “Finding the financial products and the guidance needed to start, grow and fund their businesses can be very challenging, and most small business owners don’t have a resource or partner to support them along their journey. Bringing transparency to this process and educating, empowering and advocating for business owners is so similar to what we see NerdWallet doing in the consumer space.”

And of course, small businesses may be in particularly dire need of assistance now, given the impact of the pandemic.

According to the announcement, Fundera will operate as a subsidiary of NerdWallet, with the entire team making the transition. The goal is to help NerdWallet expand into the small- and medium-business market with both content and actual financing.

“Although we offer free tools and content, we’ve never been able to fully support small business owners — that changes today,” said NerdWallet co-founder and CEO Tim Chen. “Fundera has been one of our partners for several years and their deep understanding of the SMB market, the long-standing, trusted relationships they’ve built with both lenders and business owners, and their commitment to putting the needs of small business owners first is really unique and impressive.”

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Fundera had raised $18.9 million in funding from investors including QED Investors, Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital and Susquehanna Growth Equity, according to Crunchbase.

This is NerdWallet’s second acquisition of 2020, having previously acquired U.K.-based Know Your Money. The company says it’s been growing and profitable for the past several years.

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