Goldman Sachs Leads $44M Round For Biz Credit Startup Nav
Goldman Sachs and other investors have led a $44 million investment round in Nav, a company linking small businesses to their business credit scores and reports.
Reports in Reuters on Monday (Feb. 11) said Point72 Ventures, Experian Ventures, CreditEase FinTech Investment Fund and Aries also joined the round, which Nav said will be used to focus on further developing its technology. The company also plans to invest in marketing efforts to reach more small businesses.
In an interview with the publication, Nav Co-founder and CEO Levi King said the company aims to address the pain points that small businesses face when seeking financing.
“We are in a position to make that dramatically easier for the business owner,” he said.
Nav partners with third-party credit providers and promotes their financial products on its platform, enhancing visibility for small business borrowers. This tactic “provides value to banks and other financial service providers,” said Point72 Ventures Partner Tripp Shriner in another interview.
The funding follows Nav’s $13 million investment round last year, which was also led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, while CreditEase FinTech Investment Fund and Point72 Ventures participated in that previous investment as well.
The addition of Experian‘s venture capital unit, Experian Ventures, in the most recent round is noteworthy, with Experian having recently partnered with Nav to offer its small business credit score on the Nav platform. That deal, announced last year, meant Experian joined its two largest rivals, Equifax and Dun & Bradstreet, in offering small business credit scores via the Nav platform.
“As each credit bureau formulates business credit scores differently, companies [that] are not providing reports from each bureau are not giving business owners the complete picture of how lenders could be viewing and vetting them for financing,” said Nav President Greg Ott in a statement at the time.
