Cross River Bank, a technology-driven financial services organization that provides core infrastructure and embedded financial solutions, today announced the acquisition of Betterfin, a transformative financial platform that enables small business owners to access a wide range of financial products and solutions, capital markets data, and manage their own lending and cash flow processes. Following the closing, Betterfin is wholly owned by Cross River’s parent company, CRB Group, Inc. Financial details of the transaction are not being disclosed.
“For over a decade, Cross River has redefined financial services for fintech partners, communities and individuals around the globe. With the addition of Betterfin, its team of professionals led by Eric Griego, its technology stack and market intelligence, the combination of our core infrastructure and small business offerings will become another powerful tool of our growth engine.”
Gilles Gade, Founder, President and CEO of Cross River
Acquiring Betterfin furthers Cross River’s mission of providing access to financial services through its comprehensive, API-based platform with robust regulatory compliance. Cross River has a track record in proving innovative, scalable solutions for the SMB market as demonstrated through its leading participation in the Small Business Administration’s (“SBA”) Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”), originating the second most loans across the country. With Betterfin’s technology, Cross River will be transforming and re-imagining the traditional SBA loan process experience by digitizing the entire flow and building out a more seamless, efficient, and technology-focused platform.
“Cross River has always stood apart from the pack by leading in innovation,” said Eric Griego, Founder of Betterfin. “We are excited to join a cutting-edge technology stack and together expand the ability to help business owners at scale.”
Founded in 2017 by Eric Griego and Dan Gabrieli, Betterfin is a Y Combinator-backed fintech that helps small business owners manage financing and credit. Betterfin has created a lending-as-a-service solution for financial institutions to offer commercial loans. It has developed tools that allow the company to quickly create end-to-end loan workflows for their clients including a flexible front-end framework and UX, proprietary AI-based lending logic, and a back-end loan management system. Betterfin has also built a dashboard for small businesses, providing them with an all-in-one financing management platform, access to financial products, capital markets data, cashflow management tools and personalized, automated insights so that they can make informed financial decisions. The Betterfin team will join Cross River’s growing team of nearly 700 global employees.
By integrating Betterfin’s talent and technology stack into its existing operations, Cross River is well-positioned to become one of the leading SBA 7(a) originators, further expanding its comprehensive suite of offerings. Betterfin’s software will fully digitize Cross River’s loan application process, loan origination and underwriting, broker submission, and hand-off to closing and servicing partners within the compliance framework it is known for.
About Cross River
Cross River is a fast-growing financial services organization that merges the forward-thinking offerings of a technology company with the established expertise and traditional services of a bank. Since its founding in 2008, Cross River has developed strategic partnerships with leading technology companies, marketplace lenders and payment providers, while maintaining a strong focus on regulatory compliance and consumer protection. Cross River provides a highly secure, API-based banking platform and comprehensive suite of products encompassing lending, payments, risk management and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) offerings to deliver responsible financial solutions that empower businesses and consumers anytime, anywhere. Cross River Bank is a New Jersey state-chartered FDIC insured bank.
About Betterfin
Betterfin was founded in 2017 by Eric Griego and Dan Gabrieli to help business owners understand the relationship between their finances and how lenders decision business loans. Since 2017 Betterfin has launched a suite of tools to help business owners track cash flow, credit, and work with lenders to secure financing. During 2020’s COVID 19 pandemic, Betterfin launched ReadyRelief a tool to guide business owners through PPP application. Since then they have worked with over a half dozen banks providing SaaS to enable modern digital lending.