Rebranded firm is readying a new tool to help customers manage their home as a financial asset
Mortgage technology start-up Chimney didn’t always have its current name.
The New York-based fintech debuted in 2020 as Signal Intent, with digital financial tools and calculators that helped lenders engage customers on their websites about home affordability and monthly mortgage payments.
A tweak in the business model led to a name change, with a new focus around a soon-to-launch “white label” partnership platform mortgage lenders can use for their customers to help them manage their home as a financial asset.
“What we see as a really big opportunity both for customers and the lending companies is thinking about engagement across the customer lifecycle,” explained Chimney co-founder and CEO Matthew Covi (pictured).
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The company’s new iteration as Chimney formally debuted in mid-January, with a related announcement of $1.3 million in seed financing. Plans call for using the money to fuel continued buildup of Chimney’s new platform and to double net employment from five to 10 people by the end of 2022. Three contract developers will also be coming onboard.
“There’s a big R&D component to what we’re building out,” Covi explained.
Current staffing includes two new hires just in January, adding to the trio of founders who ran things themselves through the end of 2021. In addition to Covi, the other two co-founders are CRO Chase Neinken and CTO Ryan Salerno, who met while working at content marketer NewsCred, according to the company’s seed funding announcement.
Previously, Covi was head of growth at personal finance start-up Stash, Neinken was VP of global sales at B2B media company Industry Dive and Salerno helped co-found equity management platform Equity Token, now known as Finta.
Opportunities
As Covi described it, the company’s initial launch as Signal Intent was a successful one. The start-up served as an engagement tool that helped send customers “into the application funnel” or to a loan officer. Through 2021, it signed 60 different financial institutions as clients and six of the top 100 mortgage lenders, Covi said.
“We had a really successful year building traction,” Covi said. “We reached about 1.2 million consumers, helping them make smarter financial decisions.”
At the same time, emerging data from consumers pointed to a different but related opportunity.
“What we saw from our home data from engaging all these consumers was the overwhelming demand for home lending and home ownership tools,” Covi said. “So over that year, we decided that leaning into home lending and really focusing on this solution was the best approach for us, both because of the consumer demand and need but also the need we saw for banks to retain and engage their customers.”
There is competition out there for what Chimney is doing. Covi pointed out, for example, that real estate marketplace Zillow has its home valuation tool, dubbed Zestimate. Realtor.com also has a similar product.
Chimney is staking out a different way, Covi explained.
“Lenders are losing the engagement battle and consumers are borrowing from companies like Zillow that are engaging them throughout the [property ownership] lifecycle,” he said. “We want to build upon that success that we’re seeing from Zillow but [be] really embedded within the lenders’ ecosystem, so those customers think of them when the time is right for them.”
There’s a demand out there, Covi said.
“We did a survey that showed seven out of 10 homeowners want tools that help guide them on when to [refinance] and when to renovate,” he said, adding that the tool will be wide-ranging.
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Consumers will be able to use the platform, for example, to “think about what renovation projects have the biggest return on investment, looking at things like their tappable equity and [if they should] consolidate other debts like credit card debts,” Covi said. “It’s really acting as a digital mortgage advisor that helps homeowners through the entire lifecycle, not just when they’re actively pursuing a loan.”
Chimney will keep the company’s original product, focusing that onto the home lending space.
For now, Chimney continues to work with a few design partners, including a top 20 national lender. It will roll out the system in partnership with the lender, likely toward the end of the 2021 first quarter.
“By the end of 2022, we really want to prove the model and prove the product,” Covi said.
