Fintech firm Marlette Holdings hits Proptech with acquisitions

Marlette Holdings, a fintech company that runs the Best Eggs personal finance products website, has acquired proptech firm Till, which allows consumer renters to split their rent into several smaller payments over the course of the month.

“The Till acquisition is an example of how we can leverage our strong financial position and capital markets expertise to scale innovative products,” Andrew Deringer, head of capital at Best Egg, was quoted as saying in a press release. “We will continue to look for strategic opportunities that create value for our customers as well as our shareholders.”

It’s an interesting crossover, where a company that addresses other areas of consumer credit moves into proptech through an acquisition. Recent construction management software provider Procore announced a cash cycle tool to reduce “payment friction by speeding up invoice review and offering payment options powered by Goldman Sachs.”

Till had raised $8 million in seed funding in the summer of 2020 from Route 66 Ventures, MetaProp and NextGen Venture Partners. The company’s Flexible Rent platform allows tenants to set up a customized payment plan that better aligns with their individual cash flow situations. The goal is to help “them become consistent, on-time payers” and avoid late fees, according to a press release at the time.

Till currently claims that property owners using the system see a 20% to 50% increase in on-time collections, 97% “tenant success” and a 70% reduction in time spent dealing with crime. The platform is free for owners and operators to use. The company tells consumers that they can set their own schedule to better budget and that every payment is reported to credit bureaus.

David Sullivan, co-founder and CEO of Till, pointed to Best Egg’s “scale, best-in-class technology and financing capabilities” as capabilities that would contribute to the expansion of rental payment services.

The Best Egg site claims to have funded 1.1 million loans for a total of more than $21 billion, which means an average of more than $19,000 with 95% customer satisfaction, although stars indicating a source of the latter did not appear to appear anywhere on the page. This may be related to reviews on the Trustpilot website, where the score of 7,654 reviews is 4.6 out of 5, or 92%.

Best Egg lists personal loans as well as a branded credit card as financial products, as well as credit monitoring and management tools.