Shares of Blend Labs opened 11% above their offer price, giving the digital banking platform a valuation of about $4.4bn in its stock market debut.
Blend made its debut as a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol “BLND” last week. Its $4.4bn valuation compares to a $3.3bn valuation at the time of its last raise in January — a $300m Series G funding round that included participation from Coatue and Tiger Global Management.
Blend became a unicorn last August when it raised a $75m Series F. Since its inception, Blend had raised $665m before its public market debut.
In filing its S-1 on June 21, Blend revealed that its revenue had climbed to $96m in 2020 from $50.7m in 2019. Meanwhile, its net loss narrowed from $81.5m in 2019 to $74.6m in 2020.
Looking ahead, the company had said it expects its revenue growth rate “to decline in future periods.” It also doesn’t envision achieving profitability anytime soon as it continues to focus on growth. Blend also revealed that in 2020, its top five customers accounted for 34% of its revenue.
Founded in 2012, the startup has steadily grown to be a leader in the mortgage tech industry. Blend’s white label technology powers mortgage applications on the site of banks including Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank, for example, with the goal of making the process faster, simpler and more transparent.
The San Francisco-based startup’s SaaS platform currently processes over $5bn in mortgages and consumer loans per day, up from nearly $3bn last July.
In 2020, the San Francisco-based startup significantly expanded its digital consumer lending platform. Blend began offering its lender customers new configuration capabilities so that they could launch any consumer banking product “in days rather than months.”
Blend joins digital mortgage lender Better.com which said it would combine with a SPAC, taking itself public in the second half of 2021.
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