Venture Capitalists Invest in DebtGoal

   DebtGoal is a San Francisco, California based service company launched in 2008 which helps its customers to get out of their debt faster by paying in a smarter way. It helps create a personalized SmartPay Plan that tells the client how to pay the debt in a faster way based on the current financial position and their future ambitions and goals. The company is the leader in the online personal debt management. DebtGoal helps its members to optimize, organize and pay over $1 billion in debt with its SmartPay Plan. The company has a low monthly cost and strives to help its users to build crediting through repairing what they owe.

   Early this year DebtGoal announced that they closed a $2 million deal of Series A funding. The Palo Alto venture company Tugboat Ventures was the one who led this round of financing and was joined also by Ed Ojdana, the founder of FreeCreditReport.com and New Cycle Capital, another venture capitalist. Ed Ojdana and Dave Whorton, venture partner at Tugboat Ventures joined DebtGoal’s board of directors.

   Tugboat Ventures is an early stage, venture capital firm that specializes in investing in consumer internet, mobility, enterprise software as a service, cloud computing and online advertising companies. The company is involving itself from the early stage of a company until it is ready to be publicly offered and beyond that. The companies served by Tugboat include PGP, RepairPal, Blue Nile, Good, SuccessFactors and ShopItToMe.

   Dave Whorton said that “DebtGoal is the leader in a new market with enormous potential. Nearly half of American households say getting out of debt is their number one financial goal. Until DebtGoal, there was not really a service that was appropriate for borrowers who were current on payments and wanted to pay off their debts. I am excited about working with the DebtGoal team.”

   The DebtGoal website has currently over 20,000 members and manages over $1 billion in debt, said Scott Crawford, the company’s founder and CEO. He also says that “In the months since we started, we have founded a new product category, signed major distribution partnerships, and helped our users to start to pay off over $1 billion in debt. This latest investment will help us to continue to grow and to expand our debt management services.” The company utilizes proprietary algorithms that can enable users to save over $35,000 in interest and to get off debt 16 years and sooner than they would normally would.

   DebtGoal has also had a previous investment from New Cycle Capital in the amount of $1.1 million. The company has raised so far a total of $3.1 million.