Irvine-based Cloudvirga, a fast-growing mortgage software company, said its revenue doubled last year and it expects similar growth in 2021, spurred on by millennials and other first-time homebuyers.
“In 2021, we expect the trends that fueled our growth last year—low interest rates, lenders wanting to diversify into other channels, and competition in the TPO (third-party originator) space—will not only continue, but accelerate. We expect 2021 to be another record year,” co-founder Kyle Kamrooz said.
The privately held firm, which powers digital mortgages for America’s top lenders and automates much of the process, did not provide specific revenue figures.
“We weren’t surprised at all” by the revenue-doubling in 2020, Kamrooz told the Business Journal on Jan. 12. “Going into 2021 we’re going to double again.”
“We basically signed up about 75% of the customers needed to hit our projections for 2021,” Kamrooz said.
“Rates are going to be this low for a while. They might creep up a little bit but nothing dramatic.”
Millennial Demand
New home sales, “especially for millennials and other first-time homebuyers, grew exponentially and will continue that way into 2021. The need for digital and digitization of the process is going to be huge especially with the massive amount of millennials looking to buy,” Kamrooz said.
“For 2021 we’re bullish. It’s going to be more purchase. Refinances are going to go down a little bit.”
Specifically, the company reported that:
• Revenue doubled in 2020 and it expects similar growth in 2021.
n Application volume increased by more than 300% in 2020.
• It added two new wholesale lenders in the fourth quarter. These clients are in addition to Finance of America and Citizens Bank, which previously announced their integrations in 2020.
• The company signed four new retail lenders, including two of which are doing more than $600 million in monthly loan volume.
‘Robust’ Pipeline
An extremely robust pipeline for both the retail and wholesale platforms will continue to drive growth for 2021, the company said.
“At mid-year, we launched our new Cloudvirga TPO platform to transform the way large wholesale lenders work and collaborate with their broker partners,” Kamrooz said. “Four leading wholesalers are currently implementing this solution.”
Wholesale lenders are banks or institutions that don’t deal directly with consumers, but offer their loans through third parties such as mortgage brokers.
“Wholesale lenders need to level the playing field as lenders like UWM keep dominating. These lenders are realizing technology has to be at the core of any growth strategy to compete in the rapidly growing wholesale channel.”
Consumers can manage their loan from any device using data connections and not paperwork. Cloudvirga said this month its technology powers nearly $100 billion in loans annually and is used by 10 of the country’s top 40 mortgage originators.
Cloudvirga has raised more than $77 million from investors since its 2016 founding, the Business Journal reported previously.
“The market’s going to be big just because of the purchasing, and the rates are so low,” according to Kamrooz.
The Cloudvirga co-founder said that the company has about 110 employees and that “predominantly everyone’s working from home” due to the coronavirus.
It was advertising on its website for two positions in Irvine, as of Jan. 19.
