We recently celebrated four incredible years of Percent.
Our mission at the outset was simple: build a better alternative investment platform. Four years of learning, building, and iterating on this mission led us down the path today of creating the definitive technology platform that is transforming private credit markets from end to end. What was first imagined as a way to improve alternative investing is now a multifaceted platform that is changing private credit markets for the better.
It took years of learning, building, and iterating in this archaic and inefficient market to make us realize the true opportunity in front of us: to bring public market efficiencies, standards, and governance to private credit. To get there, we had to stay true to our founding principles, and they have guided each and every strategic decision we have made.
Our Principles Guide Us
Percent was founded on three guiding principles which color everything we do as a team, as a platform, and as a company setting out to build a better financial world:
Simplicity: We sought to make investing in private credit as easy and approachable as possible. From the beginning, this meant low minimums and a diverse array of products that investors at every level can easily understand and access. In the future, this will be evident in our user experience as we continue to push to create the most innovative financial products paired with the most accessible investment platform.
Transparency: Private credit has been a notoriously opaque market, but new technologies opened a unique opportunity to bring real transparency to this market in near-real time. Diligence and monitoring tools available in other asset classes are now the norm, and investors that have grown accustomed to these features should expect the same from their private credit investments as well.
Innovation: Innovation was the driving force behind why Percent was founded in 2018. We look to the past for lessons to learn from, but we keep focused on the future to find the areas of opportunity. Private credit has not seen innovation in decades, and Percent is uniquely positioned to launch new products, to simplify workflows, and to bring the ecosystem to life in ways that were never possible before. We are the industry innovator determined to transform this market for good.
Building the Foundation
We have looked to these principles to guide what we build and how we build it. These past four years were spent developing a solid and proven foundation, and our next four years will focus on scaling what we have built.
Several monumental shifts are coming as the launch of our new underwriter platform will greatly increase deal flow for investors. Thanks to a key acquisition and greater visibility into the broader markets, we can provide all parties more actionable data on Percent. After introducing new asset classes like venture debt and products like Percent Blended Notes, we look forward to providing more varied opportunities that meet the investment objectives of all of our investors.
Investing with Impact
Looking back, it’s easy to assume that our core metric for success is the financial returns and benefits we’ve unlocked for investors and borrowers alike. Yet in these past four years, we realized how fortunate we are that the nature of private credit means we can make an impact well beyond just financial and instead on a far more personal level.
We have modernized the private credit market to make it as accessible as possible for the borrowers who face hundreds of thousands of small businesses and consumers. These companies who take full advantage of the Percent platform are able to scale to new levels, helping the people and businesses they support to thrive in ways that were never before possible. Impact and success to us is about so much more than just financial. It’s about making a real difference, and private credit is one of the few industries that makes it all possible.
The last four years have been the most meaningful and fulfilling years of my life. Working alongside a company of individuals as passionate, driven, and intelligent as they come is an opportunity of a lifetime, and one that I do not take for granted.
What started out as a small group of like-minded individuals sharing an office space in Tribeca is now a venture-backed company more than sixty strong, working together from around the world and dedicated to making an impact.
We are only here because of everyone who made it possible. This support has made all the difference between us being just another alternative investing platform and a groundbreaking ecosystem powered by platform technology that will fundamentally change how private markets operate. Thank you for such a memorable journey these past four years. I promise you the best is yet to come.