San Francisco-based Informed.IQ is a technology company founded in 2016 by Executive Chairwoman Magdalena Yesil, who has a track record of involvement with breakthrough software and technology companies.
Yesil was a first investor and founding board member of Silicon Valley software giant Salesforce.com Inc. She’s also a board member of online personal finance company SoFi Inc., and a founder of Broadway Angels, a group of women angel investors.
Informed.IQ had previously collected, analyzed and made funding decisions on Hankey’s auto loan application processing business.
The NowLake partnership deepens Informed.IQ’s relationship with Hankey Group, a conglomerate of seven companies in the automotive, finance, technology, real estate and insurance industries.
NowLake Technology was created in February through the marriage of Hankey’s two main businesses: Hancock Park-based Westlake Technology Holdings and Mid-Wilshire based Nowcom Corp. Hankey Group is chaired by Hankey, who earned the majority of his wealth from financing subprime car loans.
NowLake is one of the biggest clients for Informed.IQ, which works with large car and finance lenders.
“They were early adopters. They want to move fast toward technology and automation. We are a partner of theirs,” Yesil said of Hankey’s companies.
Informed.IQ processes almost 7% of all auto loans originated in the United States. The company is also involved in processing bank account openings and is beginning to process mortgage applications, according to Yesil.
Overall, Americans owe nearly $1.4 trillion in auto loan debt, according to a report published by LendingTree. On average, Americans take out about 2.3 million new auto loans worth about $56 billion each month, the lender says.
Informed.IQ is targeting all of NowLake’s businesses, where it is processing “millions of documents” already as part of verifying income needed to make borrowing decisions, Yesil said.
“We are technologists, not a body shop,” Yesil said of her company’s work for Hankey’s companies.
