Biz2Credit, New York, NY

Company: Biz2Credit, New York, NY
Company Description: Biz2Credit supplies small businesses with funding options ranging from term loans to working capital. Our mission, at Biz2Credit, is to provide the best funding options to business owners for every project or capital need. We strive to make this possible with our proprietary funding technology that makes business financing easy to understand and easy to access for all kinds of small businesses.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Fastest Growing Tech Company of the Year - Up to 2,500 Employees
Nomination Title: Biz2Credit

1. Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the achievements of the nominated organization since January 1 2020, OR written answers to the questions for this category? (Choose one):

   Written answers to the questions

2. If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video.
    
3. If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this first question: Briefly describe the nominated organization: its history and past performance (up to 200 words):

   Total 177 words used.

   Biz2Credit was founded in 2007 by Ramit Arora and Rohit Arora with one goal; to make finance work better for small businesses. Biz2Credit supplies small businesses with funding options ranging from term loans to working capital. Our mission, at Biz2Credit, is to provide the best funding options to business owners for every project or capital need. We strive to make this possible with our proprietary funding technology that makes business financing easy to understand and easy to access for all kinds of small businesses. Biz2Credit is a company whose ethos comes from the attitude of our immigrant co-founders, who saw a lack of credit in their own community, especially among business owners, and decided to roll up their sleeves and do something about it. To this day, we have stayed true to those roots, prioritizing underserved business owner communities, such as minority-owned, immigrant-owned, and woman-owned businesses. We've provided over $7 billion in small business loans and financing for more than 250,000 companies, and Biz2Credit is widely recognized as the number one credit resource for small businesses. 

4. If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this second question: Outline the organization's achievements since the beginning of 2020 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):

   Total 250 words used.

   The largest impact that we have had on our community since 2020 was our increased involvement with small businesses. Ever since the economic shutdown sparked by the pandemic, Biz2Credit has made it a goal to implement new ways to help small businesses recover and thrive again. Biz2Credit, through our funding subsidiary, became one of the very few fintech companies authorized by the SBA to issue PPP loans. The company developed an industry-leading PPP loan origination platform that helped to process PPP loan applications quickly, while mitigating waste and abuse of the program, and did so at record-setting speed.  

   Our growth as a company can be seen by the substantial increase in revenue from 2020 to 2021. The company’s incredible rise from $35,448,441 in 2020 to $336,000,000 in 2021 is due to several factors, most notably our involvement in government-backed lending and increased small business owner demand for financing., as well as a significant increase in our SaaS revenues and a return of our core funding business. This shift in revenue coupled with an increase of 88 employees to 120 total in the United States within the calendar year is a testament to our growth of a company that chose to innovate during the pandemic, while many others had to downsize. 

   With the considerable number of achievements recorded since the beginning of 2020, Biz2Credit has been recognized in multiple awards categories, most notably as the winner of the 2021 Finovate Awards in the “Excellence in Pandemic Response” 

5. If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this third question: Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the organization's past performance (up to 250 words):

   Total 242 words used.

   All our stated achievements led us to become the #1 fintech provider of PPP loans in the country and ranked #9 among SBA-approved lenders with a total of 175,000+ loans and of funding to businesses in need. We are proud to serve the minority-owned businesses exceedingly well with our work in PPP which was a time when they were disproportionately affected by Covid-19.  

   All these major initiatives and efforts reflect the transformational work that Biz2Credit has completed in 2020 and 2021 to accelerate digitization in the small business financing space and to assist more business owners than ever before. The company undertook this pivot due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the urgency of the response that was required from participants in the small business sector.  

   Biz2Credit as a company played a pivotal role in the dynamic shift of pushing traditional banks to digitize their lending practices, as the availability of loans via online/web applications is now available at 91% of financial institutions. This increase from 76% in 2019 and 85% last year is just another sign of how the digital lending processes employed by Biz2Credit have contributed to industry growth. Small business loan approvals at big banks jumped from 13.8% to 13.9% from July to August 2021, which is up by a three-tenths percentage from one year ago, in addition to small banks’ approvals rising from 19.1% to 19.3% from July to August this year.

6. You have the option to answer this final question: Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

   Total 15 words used.

   https://finovate.com/2021-finovate-award-winners-unveiled/

   https://www.pppforgivenesstool.com/

   https://www.lendit.com/nexus/2022/awards

   https://www.americanbanker.com/news/second-act-for-a-ppp-portal