What

Percent is a New York-based platform powering the private credit market. Founded in 2018, the company brings together underwriters, borrowers, and investors within a private-credit ecosystem that has powered more than $700M in transaction volume. Percent has raised $18.5M in venture capital, including a $12.5M Series A round in 2021 led by White Star Capital and B Capital Group.

Why 

According to Jessica Zall, Chief Marketing Officer at Percent, the startup is unique from other private-credit and fundraising platforms by bringing all three market participants together—underwriters, borrowers, and investors—and not just a subset thereof.

“Nobody's bringing together all three sides like we do when we have three audiences,” Zall told The Financial Revolutionist. “Most people have one audience for maybe two audiences, so they are not fully competitive.”

Zall identifies Percent’s underwriting technology as its unique selling point, which has underwritten more than $1.25B across over 380 debt offerings since 2018. “Our sweet spot is the underwriting technology,” Zall said.

How

Tripartite market audiences like those courted by Percent require complex marketing and sales strategies. With that in mind, Zall and her two marketing teammates—one VP and one director—have divided up B2B and B2C work, with Zall spearheading B2B initiatives. 

“We still need to prime the pump for our marketplace for investors,” Zall said. 

Percent’s homepage is the main source of capture for retail accredited investors, and symbolizes Percent’s larger effort to keep its external brand as retail investor-facing as possible. Percent directs underwriters and institutional investors to pages that are specifically targeted to them. Zall also coordinates content and research targeting those B2B groups, as well as conference events. 

Zall sees private-credit research as a way to establish thought leadership and garner underwriter, borrower, and institutional investor interest. “That helps us both build our brand from the corporate perspective as well as cater to those B2B folks from an institutional investor perspective,” she said.

“You have that monkey on your back the whole time, being worried about confusing your audience because you are different people to everyone,” Zall continued. Percent keeps PR targeted to the highest level, and doesn’t use PR to drive client acquisition from a retail-investor perspective. Orienting to underwriters, since they’re both banks and funds, allows Percent’s PR efforts to target one demographic but generate multiple outcomes. 

Regardless, Percent makes a concerted effort to say yes to most press opportunities. “At this stage, we accept almost anything that gets us out there and that increases our site visits,” Zall said. “It builds our follower base, our site visits, our share of voice; VCs that want to invest in us say they’re seeing us everywhere.”

While the B2C audience requires more education about private credit, the B2B side needs content that caters to its higher level of knowledge. “What works for B2C is not going to work for B2B from an institutional perspective,” Zall concluded. And, with B2C’s relative unawareness about private credit in mind, Percent takes extra effort to vet its content from a legal and factual standpoint. While this prevents Percent from tugging on emotional heartstrings or priming the pump expeditiously, it protects the startup in the long run.

Finally, Zall noted that B2C search-engine marketing has not been as cost effective as Percent’s institutional and qualified purchaser marketing efforts through conference events and educational content. 

“It’s proving a bigger bang for our buck, because you spend $20,000 on one conference and you may only wind up getting two or three clients, but they’re contributing $25 million to the platform,” Zall offered. “We're seeing more diminishing returns in the direct B2C side.”