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Borrower conversion platform Mortgage Coach and automated retention software Sales Boomerang are one company following a merger that’s been in the works since private equity firm LLR Partners made an $80 million investment in both firms in January, the companies said.
While terms of the deal were not disclosed, Richard Harris, a veteran of SparkPost, Oracle and AddThis, will lead the merged company to employ 144 with no layoffs anticipated, a spokesperson for the company said. Sales Boomerang and Mortgage Coach founders Alex Kutsishin and Dave Savage will continue to hold leadership roles.
Mortgage Coach helps lenders turn leads into borrowers by providing “total cost analysis” presentations, side-by-side comparisons of loan options that model the costs and benefits of mortgage loans over time. Sales Boomerang tracks data, such as interest rate changes, credit scores and home listings to notify mortgage lenders when past clients may be ready to refinance or buy their next home.
In announcing its investment in Mortgage Coach and Sales Boomerang in January, Philadelphia-based LLR Partners said plans were in motion to provide support for a wider range of financial products and to improve integration between the companies’ offerings. That process will continue after the merger.
Dave Savage
“Combining the advice-based digital presentations of Mortgage Coach with the big data borrower intelligence of Sales Boomerang enables us to create unprecedented opportunities for consumers to achieve financial freedom faster and to help lenders and loan officers to close more loans in this rising interest rate marketplace,” Savage said in a statement. “Together we have the expertise, the synergy and the platform to put game-changing tools in the hands of our lenders and loan officers.”
Rising interest rates have mortgage lenders scrambling to reach more homebuyers as their more profitable refinancing business dries up, and there are a growing number of vendors they can turn to for help.
Toronto-based fintech analytics startup Senso employs artificial intelligence to evaluate a lender’s existing pool of borrowers to identify those who are actively looking to buy their next home.
Data analytics and marketing company Buyside recently rebranded as Percy, expanded into mortgage and entered into a strategic alliance with real estate software, data and analytics provider Black Knight Inc. to help mortgage lenders identify not only homebuyer but seller leads.
Black Knight is the target of a $13.1 billion acquisition bid by Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE), which plans to incorporate its lead generation and closing and post-closing tools into a “life of loan” mortgage platform.
The nation’s biggest mortgage lender Rocket Cos., says its $1.27 billion acquisition of personal finance app Truebill will help transform the company into a fintech platform with a stable of personal finance and consumer technology brands including Rocket Mortgage, Rocket Homes, Rocket Loans, Rocket Auto and Amrock.
“The more clients that we engage with and bring into our ecosystem at higher interest rates, the more people we will be able to help when interest rates fall,” Rocket CEO Jay Farner said in May of the company’s long-term strategy. By offering other services, such as Truebill, Rocket Homes and Rocket Auto, “We’re engaging with clients, and we’re setting ourselves up to have relationships with those clients, and data about those clients, so we can assist them in the future.”
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