Type Private Founded 2009 | Number of employees 101-150 Headquarters Costa Mesa | |
Key people Scott Saunders, Founder and CEO Products Personal finance, finance technology, financial services | ||
Payoff, Inc., previously known as Payoff.com, is a Costa Mesa, California-based financial services company that offers loans to customers for paying off their credit card debt. Offering fixed-rate loans through a peer-to-peer lending platform, the company lends money to credit-worthy credit card debt holders.
Contents
History
Payoff was founded in 2009 in Culver City, California by Scott Saunders and Eden Warner, as a way to help consumers pay off their debt. The company's initial business model, as Payoff.com, incorporated social media, gamification, behavioral science and an online expense tracking portal to help consumers manage and pay down their credit card debt.
The company began to gradually move away from the social media and gamification programs for personal financial management to focus more on actively moving consumers to pay off debt.
In December 2012, the company announced a Series B funding round which raised an additional $7M.
Also in December 2012, the company announced a partnership with Encore Capital Group, a purchaser of consumer debt, to offer Payoff.com's debt reduction services to Encore's customers.
In October 2014, the company announced that Mohamed El-Erian, former head of bond trading company PIMCO, was the lead investor in a $12M funding round. It was later announced that he was joining the company's board of directors.
Early in 2015, Arianna Huffington joined the company's board of directors.
The company also announced that it had hired Dr. Galen Buckwalter, the former Chief Scientist at eHarmony, to integrate psychometric testing into its platform, with the goal of identifying borrowers who are most likely to repay their debt.
Business model
Payoff earns money by charging interest on credit card debt payoff loans, including charging a platform fee to cover loan origination and closing costs. Payoff's prospective clients fill out an online application form in order to learn their loan rate, which as of December 2014 ranged from 7.96% (11% APR) and 19.54% (22% APR).
Payoff partners with Sandy, Utah-based First Electronic Bank to offer the loans and manage client payments.
Products and services
Payoff has several branded products that are offered to borrowers.
Investors
Participants in the company's seed funding round of $1.7M in April 2007 included Great Oaks Venture Capital, FirstMark Capital, Jarl; Mohn, CEO of NPR, and Jim Nordstrom from the Nordstrom retailing family. In January 2012, the company held a Series A angel round of investing which raised an additional $4.1M, and included Anthemis Group and Capital R Investments, along with additional funding from FirstMark Capital and Great Oaks Venture Capital.
The company lists additional individual investors on their web site, including Kai Huang, founder of the Guitar Hero video game series, Bill Cvengros, founding member of PIMCO, and Brandon Beck, founder of video game publisher Riot Games.
Reviews
Payoff Reviews via eKomi verified review site.