Digital mortgage startup Better has acquired UK-based mortgage broker Trussle for an undisclosed amount, according to a press release on Monday. The acquisition will help Better enter the $2.08 trillion United Kingdom mortgage market that includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Vishal Garg
“Better eliminates the high financing costs, massive transactional friction, tyranny and mind-numbing bureaucracy that comes with getting a mortgage and buying a home in the UK via a high street bank,” Better Founder and CEO Vishal Garg said in a prepared statement. “We researched the UK market and were surprised to see how we could make it so much better for consumers buying and financing a home for the first time.”
Better said its market research revealed UK homebuyers spend months trying to acquire funding for a home purchase. The company said the tedious application process along with the fact “consumers pay thousands of points in fees,” has driven the UK’s homeownership rate down 10 percent over the past decade to 63 percent.
“We found a kindred spirit in the team at Trussle who have developed a platform that we can work alongside to help every Briton own their own home,” Garg added. “Making homeownership affordable and accessible for all customers is a key tenet of a well-functioning credit system and we are here to help grow Trussle and make it even better.”
Founded in 2015, Trussle has closed $3.7 billion in mortgage loans and refinances for UK homebuyers and homeowners, with $1.5 billion in approvals taking place over the last 12 months. The platform partners with more than 90 lenders and uses a proprietary algorithm to match consumers with the best option and alert them of prime opportunities to refinance.
Ian Larkin | Credit: LinkedIn
Trussle won the British Bank Awards’ 2021 Best Mortgage Broker award and has raised more than $20.2 million in funding from Goldman Sachs PSI and Propel Venture Partners.
“Better and Trussle were both founded on the understanding that consumers increasingly prefer to use online services to shop for and transact on major life purchases,” Trussle CEO Ian Larkin said in a prepared statement. “It is 27 years since the World Wide Web was launched and most consumer industries have embraced it by now but the UK mortgage market is still characterized by analog systems and processes.”
“We are very excited about becoming part of Better, and we are confident that Trussle’s future looks brighter than ever as part of a large and growing international organization that shares our commitment to making homeownership more simple, fair and accessible for all,” he added.
Trussle will maintain its current leadership team as they help Better navigate the UK mortgage market with robust consumer, lending pricing and risk eligibility data. Meanwhile, Better will assist Trussle in creating business-to-business relationships with estate agencies, property developers and financial services companies, and expand to insurance and title, the companies explained.
“Bringing together these data and capabilities will provide both organizations with unique strengths identifying underserved market segments and evaluating risk,” the announcement read.
This announcement is the latest in Better.com’s series of strategic moves from this year, including $500 million in funding from SoftBank’s Vision Fund and $778 million from going public through the Aurora Acquisition Corporation special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
