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Welcome to the Mortgage Technology Graveyard. The information
contained herein may not be reliable and should be separately verified.
The accounts listed here are from a variety of sources. Please feel free
to contribute further information or corrections to scooley@scooley.com.

Below is the date the firm was effectively shut down, their name, location
and a brief description. I included the total investment if I could find it.

Firms prior to 2000 include MixStar, LoanStar, AppOnline, Ram Powerpak…
Looking for history for Atone Software.

8/00
iOwn
San Francisco, CA
Went through 45m in venture funding before collapsing. Their goal was to
be a portal for home buyers and their subsequent mortgages. The LOS
firm Genesis sold to this firm with the prayer of raking in $100m for the
shares they obtained from the sale. In the end, they received almost
nothing for such a successful LOS company. One of the more little known
tragic stories of the industry. Later, Ellie Mae bought Genesis from iOwn
at a fire sale.

11/00
Mortgage.com
Florida
This dot-com high flyer went public but could never achieve profitability
and shut down abruptly. Certainly was one of the well known dot com
blow-ups. The URL was later sold ABN-Amro who is actively using the
URL today.

3/01
nCommand
San Mateo, CA
The firm was to offer a complete web based LOS and transaction
solution. It closed abruptly just after the CEO won the Steve Fraser
Award.

6/01
Loan Trader
Merged with Ultraprise as they were having financial difficulties. Firm
was founded to enable automated trading between brokers and
wholesalers.

07/01
Xpede
Oakland, CA
Their goal was to move decision to the point of sale for major lenders. It
was a very well funded company with top names for management. Still,
the promise of the internet fell short as technology, in this case, didn’t
revolutionize the existing methods. Over $50m was raised and lost.
Investors included Fannie Mae, The Carlyle Group, ABN AMRO, iGate
Ventures and Sapient Corp.

11/01
Pedestal Inc.
Washington, DC
A competitor to Ultraprise in secondary loan trading. This was another
VC funded firm where the technology couldn’t find a need. Over $50m was
invested. The firm eventually retrenched to a traditional model and
continued.

12/01
NetOriginate
This firm was founded by GE Capital with the idea that it would be a
portal between brokers and wholesalers. They lasted about two years and
how much was invested is unknown.

01/02
eCloser
San Diego, CA
They provided ASP loan origination platforms for retail and wholesale
lenders. Second round of financing was $15m.

03/02
OnePipeline
Salt Lake City, UT
The goal of this firm was to allow Realtors to help originate loans and
earn a fee for doing so. They had signed up a number of lenders to accept
the loans. Certain assets were sold to Alliance Capital Partners on this
date. By June of 2000 they had received $24m in financing.

8/02
Ultraprise
Dulles, VA
Went through at least $30m in funds. System was to be a loan exchange
system between mortgage bankers and Wall Street. In the end, they were
not able to disrupt the existing channels and had very little revenue (let
alone profits).

10/02
HomeAdvisor
Seattle, WA
This was a collaboration of a number of major lenders, Freddie Mac and
Microsoft. It was supposed to revolutionize the industry and completely
streamline the industry with a disruptive new technology. In the end, all
the money was spent and not much could be seen from it. The process
really didn’t change and perhaps became less efficient with this “new
paradigm”. Not sure of the amount invested but perhaps over $100m.

04/03
IMX
San Ramon, CA and Houston, TX
This firm is still in business. However, its original goals of being an
industry-wide exchange solution between brokers and wholesalers are
mostly gone. Today, they offer private label versions along with battling
others over owned patents. They are listed here only because they
received massive amounts of funding for which their original direction
didn’t pan out. Their current staff level is a fraction of years past.

6/03
FiNet
San Ramon, CA
They were an internet based, consumer facing auction solution. One of
the few public companies that hit $10/share at one point. A secondary
offering was made raising $40m.

12/04
Framework Inc.
Terrytown, NY
This was a major software firm with a reported $100m plus invested.
They were unable to obtain new clients to continue the operation. Noted
as a top 100 vendor. Came out of BofA which says that often, large
banking firms don’t make good software vendors. Provided core internet
based origination solutions.

1/05
eKomas
San Jose, CA
This firm developed a loan origination system and claimed to have over
50 installations. Not sure at what point they are closed but the web site
(still up) apologizes “for the recent changes of the company structure and
ownership”.

3/05
eMortgage Alliance
Laguna Niguel, CA
This wasn’t a technology company specifically but rather an alliance of
companies that were supposed to collaborate and cross-market. The
alliance fell apart. The target was the emortgage arena and consisted of
a number of firms.

02/06
TruApp
Pensacola, FL
This firm provided an online loan application that checked for fraud in a
variety of ways. The web site is not active but it’s not known if this
product might be part of a product from a larger company. They had a
booth at the MBA Annual in 10/04.

03/07
LoanCity
San Jose, CA
Perhaps this firm doesn’t belong on this list as it’s more of a mortgage
firm than a mortgage technology firm. Still, it received significant VC
funding and was meant to reinvent how mortgage brokers would work with
lenders. It was considered by many to be a technology firm. Some of the
technology was innovative though ultimately, their value-add in the chain
just wasn’t enough. Their second round of financing brought in $38.4m
and came from Century Capital Management Inc., InterWest Partners,
Marsh & McLennan Capital Inc., InSight Capital Partners, Morgan Stanley
Dean Witter Equity Funding Inc., BancBoston Robertson Stephens Inc. and
New Enterprise Associates, as well as E*TRADE Group Inc.

09/07
Portellus
Irvine, CA
They announced their exit of the mortgage technology business though
other aspects continue. They produced origination systems and it is
unclear what happened to their existing customers.

12/07
ARC Systems
Austin, CA
This firm was highly successful but depended fully upon the sub-prime
market. They lost virtually every customer in the sub-prime meltdown
giving a good example of why it's important to diversify your customer
base. Just 12 months earlier, I believe this firm was worth over $10m.
Their primary product was an automated underwriting engine for non-
prime loans. Even as advanced as their technology was, they were
unable to sell it for even pennies on the dollar. As I've always said, it's
not the technology that makes a successful mortgage technology vendor.

© Scott Cooley

Mortgage Technology Graveyard

As a mortgage technologist for 25 years, this site
was created to show just how difficult it can be to
build a successful mortgage technology firm.
Requirements for being included on this list include
having at least 20 employees and it must be a
mortgage technology solution. I primarily started
with firms in existence from the year 2000.