NerdWallet acquires NY-based Fundera

NerdWallet has acquired New York City-based Fundera, a company which created a marketplace where small businesses could find loans, allowing them to expand into other areas, including legal services, and like NerdWallet, allow them to provide free financial content.

Fundera was co-founded in 2013 by Jared Hecht, who previously co-founded GroupMe.

Hecht said in a statement:

“It can be the wild wild west out there for small business owners.

“Finding the financial products and the guidance needed to start, grow and fund their businesses can be very challenging, and most small business owners don’t have a resource or partner to support them along their journey. Bringing transparency to this process and educating, empowering and advocating for business owners is so similar to what we see NerdWallet doing in the consumer space.”

As per the terms of the deal, Fundera will function as a subsidiary of NerdWallet, with the entire team making the transition. The aim is to allow NerdWallet to expand into the small- and medium-business market with both content and actual financing.

NerdWallet co-founder and CEO Tim Chen added:

“Although we offer free tools and content, we’ve never been able to fully support small business owners — that changes today.

“Fundera has been one of our partners for several years and their deep understanding of the SMB market, the long-standing, trusted relationships they’ve built with both lenders and business owners, and their commitment to putting the needs of small business owners first is really unique and impressive.”

The financial terms of the deal were not made public.