KC finance tech firm Lending Standard nabs nearly $500K
June 2, 2015 | Bobby Burch
Lending Standard CEO Andrew Kallenbach
Kansas City-based Lending Standard recently raised nearly $500,000 to further develop its software and hire additional employees.
The financial tech company snagged the funds from regional investors, and with it has hired two additional technical staff, bringing its total headcount to eight people.
Lending Standard created a platform on which organizations can receive and collaborate on documentation required to finance a commercial loan transaction. The platform helps cut about two months of work off the lending process thanks to collaborative tools and checklists that reduce errors and result in less expensive legal fees.
Lending Standard CEO Andrew Kallenbach said that little has changed in the commercial lending process since the 1980s, which makes it a market ripe for disruption.
“It’s a very antiquated process,” Kallenbach said. “Nothing has changed since the 80s. The last innovation was really the spreadsheet.”
The commercial loan process for multifamily units is an arduous process, Kallenbach said. It often can take up to nine months of back-and-forth between an array of parties — real estate lenders, banks, attorneys, businesses and other financial institutions — that use different programs to mange the mountain of documents required to complete a deal. There often can be more than 200 pages of documents associated with one loan transaction.
Needless to say, it’s a burdensome, expensive operation, he said.
“Today, they have to manually type all of these documents — there are an endless number of forms,” Kallenbach said. “We automate all the documents and letters that have to be completed.”
Lending Standard, formerly Form Zapper, participated in the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s E-Scholars program and is a graduate of SparkLabKC.
2015 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Plexpod acquires Think Big Coworking, expanding KC footprint
Plexpod isn’t playing. Amid Kansas City’s competitive coworking market, Plexpod is doubling down with the acquisition of Think Big Coworking’s 1712 Main Street location, Plexpod founder Gerald Smith said. The acquisition adds more than 30,000 square feet of space to Plexpod’s already large footprint in the area and forges a new partnership between the two…
Raaxo takes shape after pivot from Aphrodite Bra Co’s body scan concept
Despite its use of body-mapping technology, Aphrodite Bra Company wasn’t the right fit for customers’ needs, said Carlanda McKinney, founder of the newly rebooted custom intimates company Raaxo. “Aphrodite had been stuck in the starting-up space,” she said. “We’d never really gotten enough sales or enough traction to say, ‘We’re launched,’ or, ‘We’re in business.’…
Serial entrepreneur leverages past success for Bridge Space coworking project
Bridge Space will be more than a coworking office, Ben Rao said. He hopes it will be the heart of Lee’s Summit’s blossoming entrepreneurial ecosystem. “My No. 1 goal is to accelerate entrepreneurs’ success,” said Rao, Bridge Space founder and a serial entrepreneur himself. “It’s an opportunity for me to build something that would make…
KC mom’s humble entrepreneurial journey draws on healing power of creativity
Huddled in her parents’ basement, between the cribs of her crying twin babies, Keliah Smith began to draw. She was unemployed and feeling emotionally drained. The relationship with her children’s father had soured. Her escape: the stylus and smartphone in her hands. The Kansas City mother drew what she didn’t see in the mirror, she…