Denver-based crowd lending platform P2Binvestor has grown immensely since launching five years ago, reaching the $1 billion lending mark earlier this year.
The company was started in an effort to close the cash gap between growing businesses with assets and traditional commercial lending.
P2Bi's platform makes it easier for financial institutions and investors to fund growing companies and gives small and medium-sized businesses access to a marketplace of lenders.
The company also added its third bank partner this spring, Pacific Mercantile Bank, setting P2Bi up for sustained growth in the highly competitive fintech arena.
We spoke with P2Bi co-founder and CEO Krista Morgan about P2Bi's growth, the company's plans for the future and the state of women in fintech.
Colorado Inno: When did you know your idea for P2Bi had what it takes to grow into a full-fledged company?
Morgan: Honestly, I thought of the idea simply searching and researching ‘factoring’, ‘invoice financing’, PO financing, etc. I found a lot of the methods and business practices to be outdated and cumbersome and thought to myself, ‘there is a business here.’"
CI: What is the biggest hurdle you’ve faced in building the company? How did you overcome it?
Morgan: I came from a career in marketing and had never worked in the fintech space. With that came a monumental task of building credibility. It was hard to build trust and get time with industry mentors being so new to the space. A whole other issue was raising both equity financing to build the company as well as debt financing in order to fund our asset-based loans to our clients with the lack of a finance background or said credibility. I had to really hustle and build the right relationships and partnerships to show that my business had legs and could be scalable.
CI: As fintech is a predominantly male industry, in your opinion, what has to be done to achieve gender equality and encourage more female founded and led companies?
Morgan: It takes having more women in high-level leadership roles. It means having more women on boards, as C-Level Executives, and more in positions of power. It seems easier said than done, but honestly it should be the jobs of tech companies across the country to better integrate females into leadership positions. At P2Binvestor, over 50 percent of our staff is female, over 40 percent of our board is female, and over 60 percent of our leadership team is female. It wasn’t a conscious decision, it has just been choosing the best qualified candidates that help bring different opinions and skillsets to our diverse team. In the end, having more women in high-level positions can really empower other females to apply for future leadership roles, or even one day start their own company.
CI: What advice would you give to women trying to break into the fintech space?
Morgan: When I started my initial dive into fintech, it almost seemed like a different language to me. There was so much jargon and ‘tech-talk’ that at times it felt overwhelming. Once I really dug into it, most of this jargon wasn’t actually difficult at all. In fact, lots of the ways fintechs speak, operate, and function can be boiled down to common sense. So if you’re a female, just go for it. Take the chance and learn how people talk and learn the acronyms. It’s not as complicated as it seems.
CI: What are the next steps for P2Bi and how does the company continue to grow?
Morgan: Just this March, P2Binvestor hit our ‘$1 Billion Funded’ milestone which was pretty big for the business. Considering we started this business 5 years ago, we’re extremely happy with our growth. We really think we’ve built a scalable product that can continue to grow in the coming years. Our Bank Partnership Program is rapidly expanding as we add bank partners across the US which organically originates new business and we continue to invest in other sales channels that grow the business. Simply put, we offer an easy-to-use technology that makes managing your asset-based loan simple with a high-level of personal service. We’ve built a really loyal client base who does a great job of referring us other businesses in need. As long as we keep doing our job and putting our clients first and offering an innovative product, P2Bi will continue to grow.
