DURHAM – Given the trends toward mobile-first banking as technology revolutionizes banking, it’s not surprising that fintech startups are attacking business-to-business payments and building software to reduce friction in business-to-business relationships.

Take Durham startup LoanWell, which started targeting end-users, taking their pitch of crowdfunding a loan from their community, directly to consumers.

“It was a slow drag, would have taken a lot of money,” said founder and CEO Bernard Worthy during a fintech-focused panel discussion at the CED’s Virtual Connect conference.  “We were pitching, and trying to get the funding.”

The company ought to have pivoted six months sooner, recounted Worthy in a recently published blog post on Startup Grind. But after a year of research, including a thorough analysis of customer and end-user needs, developed a model and a niche market, and is now growing by delivering value at the “end of the totem pole for small lenders,” said Worthy.

The company works with Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), which all share a goal of expanding opportunity in low-income and underserved communities by expanding access to financial products and services, such as small business loans, as well as online communities and online lenders like Hello Alice, said Worthy.

“Over the past four years, I’ve brought a product to market and fundraised over $1M to increase access to capital for thousands of small businesses with over $100M loans in 2020 alone,” wrote Worthy in that blog post.  The company also powered North Carolina’s Rapid Recovery Loan Program, which helped small businesses access capital to respond to the economic impact of COVID-19.

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LoanWell’s end-to-end, customizable, white-labeled loan origination system which allows CDFIs, for example, a software solution to effectively originate, process, and approve the loans that the institution can make to support low-income communities.

“It’s a diversity of communities that we’re able to touch,” explained Worthy.  “Some of our clients are doing loans for education, like code schools,” he noted, adding that some loans have also been originated to benefit entrepreneurs re-entering communities following incarceration.

Worthy and his team have grown the company slowly and intentionally, noting that he seeks the right strategic partners, which has worked for the company thus far.  “I don’t think that you can really blitz B2B software companies,” said Worthy.  “At the end of the market, these CDFIs, no one is looking at this space, and we’ve been able to drive up that value in short-order, in 18 months or so, as one of the go-to technology platforms in that space.”