US-backed tech firm acquires LenderSpotlight

Lendesk has purchased LenderSpotlight, the so-called “lender cheat sheet” that’s proven immensely popular with the broker channel since its 2017 launch.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

“When we first launched LenderSpotlight, you could barely search 10 lenders with a just a few filters,” said LenderSpotlight’s founder and President of Technology and Partner Integrations with Tango Financial Jason Henneberry, who’s also the brains behind DocAssist. “Since then, we’ve added over 50 new lenders, thousands of searchable guidelines and a ton of new features. I think Lendesk really appreciates how the community has adopted the tool and any changes we see will be enhancements to the current features that brokers have come to love.

“Brokers perform over 100,000 rate and product searches each month and it’s important to make sure there is continuity when you transfer ownership of such an important technology. Myself and several members from our team will be working closely with Lendesk over the next few months to ensure a smooth handoff.”

Although news of the acquisition has been sparse on details, Lendesk is one of the Canadian mortgage space’s preeminent technology companies, and its purchase of LenderSpotlight comes on the heels of its own purchase by Rock Holdings, the parent company of major U.S. lender Quicken Loans.

“Under the agreement, Lendesk will continue to operate independently from its Vancouver headquarters under the leadership of Alex Conconi, the company’s founder and CEO,” said an April statement about Rock Holdings’ acquisition.

“Our partnership with Rock Holdings will allow us to gain wisdom and insight from the world’s leading mortgage technology company, as we continue to improve the entire experience, from the time of application through closing,” Conconi added.

Given the vast financial resources LenderSpotlight can now access, the acquisition should bode well for the broker channel. Henneberry says Lendesk already has some ideas about how that will happen.

“One of the things our team was most excited about is that Lendesk has some great relationships at the lender level when it comes to technology integrations, and they are well-positioned to connect Spotlight with more lenders and enhance the search functionality for brokers,” he said.

“LenderSpotlight was really the first piece of technology that helped reduce the time it takes to prepare an application and find the most suitable products for clients. There is a lot more that can be done to improve the process, and Lendesk is working on some incredible ways to reduce friction for brokers. “