progressa, Canada’s fastest growing financial technology company focused on helping non-prime and near-prime Canadians seeking to improve their financial health, announced today that it has partnered with Alpine Credits to bring its online lending platform to the industry leading Alpine Credits network of companies.

Following a successful $11.4 million Series A round, progressa is moving quickly to expand their lending offering to new channels as they begin to execute on an aggressive growth strategy.

By partnering with Alpine Credits, progressa products will now be offered alongside one of Canada’s oldest and most well-known non-bank mortgage brands. Alpine Credits, long synonymous with helping Canadians when banks won’t, will now offer progressa’s advanced proprietary lending technology to its customers while expanding its suite of financial products.

“This new partnership continues a recent trend in Canada that has seen traditional financial institutions teaming up with FinTech startups,” said progressa CEO Ali Pourdad. “This is a great opportunity to align ourselves with a brand that Canadians know they can turn to when the banks say ‘no’ while at the same time we can help Alpine to stay ahead of the curve on the technology side.”

Lending startups like progressa have been making major in-roads recently by offering borrowers a simpler and more transparent loan application experience, moving the process almost entirely online and mobile. This is consistent with what many Canadians have come to expect when signing up for a new product, but what traditional financial institutions have been unable or unwilling to deliver. With advanced data science and analytics, progressa is also able to better evaluate credit risk and provide loans where traditional institutions could not.

For their part, established institutions like Alpine Credits are looking to strategic FinTech partnerships as a way to ensure that their customers enjoy the most current customer experience without having to leave the brand they trust.

As Alpine Credits Vice President, Arif Mulji adds, “Alpine Credits is one of Canada’s most trusted brands and we are excited to be working with a progressive lender that is always looking for ways to improve customer experience while changing life for the better for Canadians without traditional access to credit. We are also excited to be able to offer unsecured lending options to our loyal customer base.”

Content delivered via the Techvibes NewsWire.

progressa™, a Vancouver-based financial technology company focused on helping sub-prime and near-prime Canadians seeking to improve their financial health, announced today that it has closed an $11.4 million Series A equity & debt financing round led by Cypress Hills Partners and Conconi Growth Partners.

Founded just under three years ago, progressa has established a solution for millions of credit-constrained Canadian consumers looking for a second chance at improving their credit history.

Through the use of proprietary credit scoring models and advanced data science, the Company’s primary focus is helping a segment of the Canadian population that is currently underserved by traditional lending institutions.

The aim is to help clients pay past due bills which are currently diminishing their credit standing by converting them to manageable fixed term installment loans.

With the Series A financing complete, the Company plans to grow its consumer loan portfolio and strengthen its position in the Canadian online and peer-to-peer lending space. CEO Ali Pourdad commented, “We are excited to be working with these exceptional partners as they are well versed in the alternative lending space and more importantly believe and support our socially responsible lending approach.”

The financing is anticipated to carry progressa from its current 25 employee operation to over 50 by the end of 2016 and grow its loan origination platform by 400% over the same period.

Hashem Aboulhosn, with Conconi Growth Partners added, “There is an immense opportunity today to serve under-banked Canadians and the progressa team has demonstrated that they can execute on that opportunity. This financing will give them the capital to continue their rapid growth and become a major player in the online lending space.”

The Company is also pleased to announce that it will be introducing a marketplace investor platform in Q1-2016 to allow buyers to purchase its loans, becoming Canada’s first solely sub-prime / near-prime focused peer-to-peer lender.

Chairman David Gens commented, “By making this asset class available to investors, we’re able to provide attractive yields in today’s low interest rate environment, while simultaneously opening up credit to Canadians that lack access to it.”