Lighter Capital Adds Former Silicon Valley Bank’s Head of Risk, Marc Verissimo, to its Board of Directors

SEATTLE (May 16, 2017) – Lighter Capital, a financial tech company revolutionizing the business of startup finance by using technology to provide tech entrepreneurs up to $2-million in growth capital, today announced that former Silicon Valley Bank executive Marc Verissimo has joined the company’s board of directors.

Verissimo has nearly 40 years of banking experience, most of it working with technology companies. After stints at First Interstate Bank and Bank of America, he was Head of Technology Banking at Comerica Bank and then joined Silicon Valley Bank in 1993.

Over the next 23 years, Verissimo served on SVB’s executive committee and worked in multiple roles, including Head of California Banking, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Risk Officer, and interim Chief Financial Officer.

In these positions, he led the California banking team that comprised the majority of the bank’s revenue, oversaw the bank’s international expansion into the United Kingdom, China, Israel and India, and led credit, enterprise risk management, cyber security, compliance and regulatory relations, among other responsibilities.

During this time, SVB grew from $900 million in deposits and a $50 million market cap, to $81 billion in client funds and a $9.5 billion market cap, by far the largest tech lender in the world.

“Marc is an incredibly thoughtful person with unparalleled experience in tech lending,” said BJ Lackland, Chief Executive Officer of Lighter Capital. “He’s the ideal person to add to our board to help Lighter Capital grow and accomplish our mission of helping entrepreneurs secure the resources they need to grow their businesses.”

“I couldn’t be more excited about joining the team at Lighter Capital,” Verissimo said. “Technology is changing lending, and I am deeply impressed with Lighter Capital’s technology for funding tech companies. They are at the forefront of this and the opportunities ahead of us are enormous.”

“Marc helped grow a financial organization that dominates lending in the tech industry,” Lackland said. “We look forward to his insights and support in every part of our business as we launch new products, enter new markets, expand our credit and portfolio management capabilities, scale up our operations, and much more.”

Lighter Capital has developed a technology platform that expedites the funding process by gathering and analyzing thousands of data points, automatically modeling risks and growth expectations. Raising a round of equity financing can be a founder’s full-time job for three to nine months, and Lighter Capital’s technology reduces the amount of time entrepreneurs spend raising capital by 90 percent.

Furthermore, with each round of equity funding founders give up between 20 to 40 percent ownership in their company, as well as a board seat. With Lighter Capital’s funding, entrepreneurs don’t give up equity or control.

Lighter Capital provides revenue-based financing, which combines many of the best aspects of debt and equity. With revenue-based funding, a company agrees to share a percentage of future revenue with an investor in exchange for up-front capital. This aligns the investor and the entrepreneur toward growth without diluting the entrepreneur’s ownership.

In addition to Lackland and Verissimo, Lighter Capital’s board of directors includes: Jeff Seely (Chairman), founder and former Chairman & CEO of Sharebuilder (sold to ING); Erik Benson, managing director of Voyager Capital; Rob Martin, managing partner of Echelon Capital; Andy Sack (Vice Chairman), founder of Lighter Capital and a Seattle venture capitalist.