Kabbage extended more than $4 billion to more than 130,000 small businesses, a 30% increase in total funding and total customers served since the company’s last milestone announcement in April 2017.
Robert Sharpe joined the company as its chief operating officer. Sharpe has more than 20 years of executive leadership in North America, Europe and Asia. He has successfully held various C-level positions, including president, chief executive officer and chief operating officer with multiple global consumer goods companies, each serving tens of thousands of customers and generating billions of dollars in revenue.
Sharpe will be responsible for Kabbage’s continued growth and operational oversight as the company expands internationally and scales its services to serve more and larger small businesses.
“Having focused on delighting customers, product innovation, operational excellence and global expansion throughout my career, I am excited to contribute the benefits of these experiences to Kabbage’s mission of driving small business success,” said Sharpe. “Kabbage is a well-established leader thanks to the vision and leadership of co-founders, Rob Frohwein and Kathryn Petralia, and its unrelenting focus on customer experience, technology innovation and creating an unmatched culture.”
“Our success is rooted in never losing sight of the customers’ needs and in building a team that believes in, and acts upon, the company’s vision,” said Kabbage president, Kathryn Petralia. “With Bob as COO, we have a seasoned leader with a shared dedication to our vision and a proven record of successfully leading rapidly scaling companies.”
During 2017, Kabbage reached major milestones, including:
- Raising $250 million, the largest equity raise in the small business lending industry to date
- Expanding the industry’s largest international network of global-bank partnerships with launches in France and Italy
- Securitizing $550 million and finalizing a $200 million revolving credit facility each with investment-grade ratings to fuel future small business lending
- Receiving some of the most well-respected awards in the industry: KPMG 2017 Fintech100, Deloitte 2017 Technology Fast 500, CB Insights Fintech 250, Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women 2017 (Kathryn Petralia)
Kabbage is funded and backed by investors, including SoftBank Group, BlueRun Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, SoftBank Capital, Reverence Capital Partners, the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, ING, Santander InnoVentures, Scotiabank and TCW/Craton.
All Kabbage U.S.-based loans are issued by Celtic Bank, a Utah-chartered industrial bank.