Orchard Platform

Orchard Platform was established in New York City in 2013 by a team with deep roots in finance and technology, including Matt Burton, Angela Ceresnie, Jonathan Kelfer, David Snitkof, and Phil Rosen. The founding team's background was a strategic blend of Wall Street and Silicon Valley expertise; Burton and Kelfer hailed from Google, while Ceresnie and Snitkof brought extensive experience from financial institutions like Citigroup and American Express. This fusion of skills was central to Orchard's mission to build the essential infrastructure for the burgeoning online lending market.

The company positioned itself as a crucial intermediary between loan originators—the platforms creating new loans—and institutional investors, such as hedge funds and asset managers, looking to deploy capital into this alternative asset class. Orchard's core offering was a technology platform that provided sophisticated data, analytics, and reporting tools. This allowed investors to efficiently analyze, purchase, and manage loan portfolios from a multitude of originators through a single interface, solving a significant market fragmentation problem. For originators, the platform offered access to a diversified and stable source of capital, enabling them to scale their lending operations. Revenue was generated through its suite of software and data products.

A key milestone was the launch of the Orchard Originator Database in 2014, a centralized repository providing standardized information on a global scale for loan originators. The firm also developed the Orchard US Consumer Marketplace Lending Index, which was distributed on the Bloomberg Professional service, establishing itself as an industry benchmark. Despite its initial success and raising approximately $40 to $60 million from prominent investors, the company faced challenges when it attempted to pivot into a trading platform for loan securities. This move did not gain the expected traction, leading Orchard to seek a buyer.

In April 2018, the company was acquired by Kabbage, a small business lending platform that had been a strategic customer of Orchard. The acquisition was driven by Kabbage's desire to integrate Orchard's advanced analytics and data science capabilities to enhance its own underwriting platform and accelerate product development. Following the acquisition, the Orchard brand was retired, and its core team, including co-founders Matt Burton and David Snitkof, joined Kabbage in leadership roles.

Keywords: online lending, marketplace lending, institutional investors, data analytics, financial technology, loan originators, portfolio management, capital markets, asset management, Kabbage