- Percent (formerly Cadence) — the private investing platform changing the landscape of the $800 billion private credit industry — announced recently that it raised $12.5 million in Series A funding. These are the details.
Percent (formerly Cadence) — the private investing platform changing the landscape of the $800 billion private credit industry — announced recently that it raised $12.5 million in Series A funding in a round co-led by White Star Capital and B Capital.
Launched in 2018, the company brought a unique fixed-income investment product to individual and institutional investors. And by early 2021, the company had over $400 million in investments structured and issued across its investor platforms with over 200 deals closed and over $6 million in interest disbursed to investors.
With a new fundraising round, Percent plans to accelerate the development of the company’s infrastructure to help convert a pipeline of over 250 data-driven originators and $2 billion in pending transaction volume. And this growth coincides with the rapid market expansion of private credit, which Preqin projects will increase by 11.4% annually from $848 billion at the end of 2020 to $1.46 trillion at the end of 2025.
The Series A funding round was co-led by White Star Capital and B Capital with participation from Revel Partners and Recharge Capital, the company’s prior round leads.
This round also supports an already institutionally-oriented investor base, which includes Morgan Creek Digital, Nimble Ventures, Altai Ventures, 10X Capital, and Richard “Dick” D. Parsons, former chairman of Citi (investing through R&R Venture Partners). And Oliver Wriedt, former Co-CEO of CIFC, and Navtej S. Nandra, former President of E*Trade, both of whom participated in prior fundraising rounds, also serve on the company’s Board of Directors.
KEY QUOTES:
“As the company evolved and our broader vision changed, the ties that bound us to the name Cadence became few and far between. The world thinks in the form of percents when it comes to measuring returns, tracking ownership, and monitoring performance. In this way, Percent embodies our past, our present, and our future in just a single word and I couldn’t be more excited to see how we grow into the new brand.”
— Founder and CEO Nelson Chu
“Success for us will be measured in how fast we can source, structure, syndicate, and surveil the assets of our originators. By building out the technology for ourselves, we have shown that we can be faster, cheaper, and more flexible than any other underwriter in the market, and we’ve only just scratched the surface of what we can accomplish.”
— Prath Reddy, President of Percent
“Percent launched in 2018 with an ambitious vision to help corporate borrowers of any size secure and fulfill debt capital through technology. By innovating the way private debt is originated, structured, and syndicated, Percent is poised to become the dominant infrastructure layer delivering debt capital with unprecedented levels of transparency and efficiency.”
— Sep Alavi, General Partner, White Star Capital
“The private credit market has grown rapidly even without strong infrastructure or an established category leader. Investors have been getting by with subpar options in this space, but they’re increasingly demanding more insight into their high-yield investments. If the private credit market is to reach its trillion-dollar potential, it will be because a company like Percent helped bring it to maturity.”
— Karen Page, General Partner at B Capital Group
