Raiseworks splits into two businesses

Raiseworks CEO Gary Chodes has sold his minority interest in Raiseworks LLC.

In December 2013, Gary Chodes and GLI Finance (GLIF), the specialist provider of finance to global small and medium enterprises, founded Raiseworks LLC, a financial services technology company aiming to improve small business access to capital by leveraging advanced technology.

Gary was the CEO of the company from its inception until October 7th 2015, when the company was split into two separate business units, Raiseworks LLC, and Raiseco Holdings LLC. He has now sold his minority interest in Raiseworks LLC, to GLI Finance, and resigned from both his CEO and board member positions at the company.

This new business adopts the same Raiseworks’ technology, but it intends to be a new, independent loan origination business, offering a wide variety of financial products on behalf of banks, credit unions, credit card companies and the like. Raiseworks will continue to focus on larger loans to US small business.

Gary provided AltFi with more colour around this new business: 

“At Raiseco, we will help small business access a wide variety of products and choose the best terms and pricing and be able to take advantage of the tremendous demand from large financial institutions, such as banks and credit unions, to tap on-line or peer-to-peer originated loans through one efficient marketplace. With multiple products, Raiseco will offer multiple brands, including those of his bank partners as well as brands I have developed and worked with before.”

Geoff Miller, CEO of GLI, is feeling enthusiastic about this event and provided Gary with considerable support for his new company. He commented:

“This strategic move at Raiseworks could not have come at a more exciting time. Raiseworks’ technology and infrastructure has been developed and refined over five years and can now be put to use through two companies to help the widest possible group of small businesses in the US. The transaction further positions Raiseworks to remain flexible as online markets evolve and shift rapidly in the US.”

GLI Finance holds investments in a wide range of alternative finance platforms, including Proplend, CrowdShed, Platform Black, LiftForward and many more. In September 2015, the company announced the launch of a new Closed End Fund (CEF) by the name of “GLI Alternative Finance PLC”, which now trades on the Specialist Fund Market of the LSE under the ticker “GLAF”.

At launch, the fund had a market cap of £52.67m comprised of £40.27m of GLI loans and of £12.4m of new capital that has been raised via the London Stock Exchange listing (LSE).