How it started
History
Eyal Lifshitz and Nir Klar founded Bluevine as an online-only business financing company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, in 2013. Their business model was designed to disrupt small business lending by using machine learning algorithms to speed up risk assessment and invoice factoring to deliver loans faster than competitors. In April 2016, Bluevine expanded its product line to include a business line of credit through Celtic Bank.
By 2019, Bluevine had moved its headquarters to Redwood City, California. That year, Bluevine announced an FDIC-insured business checking account and Mastercard debit card. They subsequently raised another $102.5 million in funding, for a total of over $240 million.
In 2020, Bluevine offered expedited applications for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, which were established by the CARES Act. Bluevine was one of the top lenders by application volume, up until the PPP program expired in June 2021.
In December 2022, the United States House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a report on several fintech companies over their roles in approving potentially fraudulent PPP loan applications. The report claimed that fintech companies “faced challenges in properly administering the program,” and that Bluevine reduced PPP fraud by implementing new software, manual reviews, and continuous review by Celtic Bank and Cross River Bank.
Bluevine moved its headquarters again to Jersey City, New Jersey in 2023. An opening ceremony was held on January 10, attended by Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and New Jersey Secretary of State Tahesha Way.
From Wikipedia’s article on BlueVine, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3