Tag: Business & Financial Services

Millennial-Centric Banking App to Hire 30-50 Industry Vets to Drive Growth

Millennial-centric banking app to hire 30-50 industry vets to drive growth

15 MARCH, 2019 | DELAWARE BUSINESS TIMES

Acorns, the company behind a simple investment application with more than 5 million account holders, will add up to 50 technology and operations jobs downtown over the next six months, expecting to find them among longtime Delaware bankers looking to return to the fast-growth days.

The Irvine, California-based company’s core product is a mobile-banking app that rounds up users’ daily purchases to the nearest dollar and automatically puts the difference into investment accounts.

New Chief Technology Officer Hugh Tamassia says the company sees Wilmington as “a powerful financial community that has been depleted over the past few years with people who can help us scale and add products,” he said.

He should know. Both Tamassia and Acorns Chief Operating Officer Manning Field worked for JPMorgan Chase in Wilmington for more than a dozen years.

The new Acorns employees will be housed in The Mill, a co-working space located a block from Rodney Square, in what is another positive piece of news this week for downtown Wilmington.

Tamassia says he’ll be looking for 20 to 30 technologists —developers, testers, program managers, and scrum masters —while the operations side will be looking for 10-20 risk managers and other operations people “with years of doing banking at scale who can bring that experience to an emerging product.”

Tamassia, who joined Acorns on Jan. 11, said he’s been charged with ensuring “that every part of our infrastructure is scaled to meet the demand of a fast-growing customer base.” He’s looking for people like himself who will be attracted by the company’s vision of being a financial wellness system that “puts the tools of wealth-making in everyone’s hands.”

Acorns, which launched in 2014,was one of Fast Company magazine’s Most Innovative Companies of 2019 and counts actor Ashton Kutcher and Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant among its investors.

Perhaps more important, NBC Universal and Comcast Ventures announced an equity investment in the startup in late January that includes a strategic partnership with Comcast-owned CNBC to produce original content with Acorns.

The investment was part of Acorns’ latest $105 million funding round, which put its valuation at $860 million. BlackRock, Bain Capital Ventures, TPG’s Rise Fund, DST and Michael Dell’s MSD Capital also took part in the Series E round. NBCUniversal, which is now Acorns’ biggest shareholder, also received a seat on the startup’s board.

According to the company, the average Acorns customer is around 32 years old with an income of $50,000 to $60,000. The CNBC partnership is designed to reach an “up-and-coming” financial audience that is younger or less financially savvy.

In addition to its retirement-investment product, Acorns users can open an IRA and obtain a checking account and debit card that link to its investment products.

 

Kurt Foreman

PRESIDENT & CEO

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Innovative Fintech Company Expands – Adding More than 200 Jobs in Delaware

Innovative fintech company expands – adding more than 200 jobs in Delaware

17 DECEMBER, 2018

Marlette Funding, LLC, a leader in the FinTech sector, is adding jobs in Delaware. Marlette Funding, LLC uses the consumer-lending platform Best Egg, which offers a breakthrough frictionless online personal loan platform where qualified applicants can instantly view loan offers with no impact to their credit score and receive funds in as little as one business day.

Marlette leverages technology to create a distinctive customer-centric focus delivering faster, easier and a more personalized experience. The technology platform speeds and improves the customer experience, using machine learning and artificial intelligence to remove friction, reduce credit and fraud losses and create a hassle-free consumer experience.

Marlette’s user-friendly approach has resulted in being named #1 in Customer Satisfaction in Personal Loans from Lending Tree, the nation’s leading online loan marketplace, maintaining their recognition as the #1 Personal Loan Company from Best Company, continuing to hold an A+ Rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and, most recently, Best Egg was named to the LendEDU list of top personal loan lenders for Q32018.

FinTech is one of the fastest growing disruptive innovations in the country. Delaware, with its bench strength in the business and finance sectors, makes an attractive choice for the fintech sector. During the past five years, employment in Delaware’s finance industry grew by an annual average of 2.4%, twice the national rate and much faster than neighboring states. Delaware has been a magnet for out-of-state direct investment by financial services firms in recent years, with $725 million invested since 2010. Wilmington is the leading destination in our region for this investment.

Bobby Ritterbeck, Marlette’s Chief Marketing Officer, presented Marlette Funding LLC’s plan to add jobs and expand its Delaware facility to the Council on Development Finance’s (CDF) public meeting on November 26 and on December 17. The proposal includes a request for a performance-based grant of up to $2.725M to create 232 new full-time jobs and support its $7.5M capital investment in New Castle County, Delaware.

“We are entering 2019 with strong organizational growth, positive cash flow and an innovation strategy based on big data, smart tools, better technologies, and sophisticated marketing,” said Jeffrey Meiler, CEO of Marlette Funding, LLC. “Delaware has been a great state to grow our business, we expect to hire more than 200 people as we grow and provide additional economic benefits that will contribute to the overall economic development efforts of the first state.”

“We are excited Marlette is choosing Delaware for its continued growth,” said Delaware Governor John Carney. “With Delaware’s strength in finance and business services, we are ideally positioned to foster and support the fintech sector as well as other technology-based ventures. This commitment from Marlette reaffirms that Delaware is a great state for businesses of all sizes to put down roots, grow and create jobs.”

“New Castle County is dedicated to winning the future through sustainable job creation,” said Matt Meyer, New Castle County Executive. “Marlette Funding’s decision confirms that New Castle County is a premier location to grow the financial technologies of tomorrow, adding hundreds of new jobs.”

In a short time, Marlette has developed a reputation for its commitment to a positive and creative employee culture, as reflected in its employee engagement score, which ranks in the top 10 percent of thousands of companies using OfficeVibe, a leading online employee engagement platform, across 90 countries and recognition in 2018 by the American Banker as one of the Top Fintech Places to Work and in the Delaware News Journal Top Workplaces.

Marlette Funding and its employees are also solid corporate citizens volunteering and supporting local Delaware charities including Junior Achievement of Delaware, the Ronald McDonald House, the Food Bank and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

About Marlette Funding

Marlette Funding, LLC, uses the consumer-lending platform Best Egg, which offers a breakthrough frictionless online personal loan platform where qualified applicants can instantly view loan offers with no impact to their credit score and receive funds in as little as one business day. Marlette Funding LLC, a financial technology and service provider for banks, is dedicated to finding better ways to make money accessible to help people achieve their goals and enjoy life. The team blends decades of banking experience with deep customer knowledge and smart technology to deliver digital products, services and experiences in a more relevant way.

Since March 2014, the online loan platform has delivered over $6.7B of prime loans with strong credit performance as a third-party service provider for Cross River Bank under the Best Egg brand. For more information, visit www.MarletteFunding.com or www.bestegg.com.

About Delaware Prosperity Partnership

Created in 2017, Delaware Prosperity Partnership (DPP) is a nonprofit that leads the state of Delaware’s economic development efforts to attract, grow and retain businesses; to build a stronger entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem; and to support private employers in identifying, recruiting and developing talent in the state of Delaware. For more information, visit www.deprosperitypartnership.com.

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