Credit Karma is an American multinational

personal finance Personal finance is the financial management which an individual or a family unit performs to budget, save, and spend monetary resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and future life events. When planning personal fi ...

company founded in 2007, which has been a brand of

Intuit Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application ...

since December 2020. It is best known as a free credit and financial management platform, but its features also include monitoring of

unclaimed property Lost, mislaid, and abandoned property are categories of the common law of property which deals with personal property or chattel which has left the possession of its rightful owner without having directly entered the possession of another person. ...

databases and a tool to identify and dispute

credit report :''This article deals with the general concept of the term credit history. For detailed information about the same topic in the United States, see Credit score in the United States.'' A credit history is a record of a borrower's responsible repa ...

errors. The company operates in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. All of Credit Karma’s services are free to consumers. Revenue from targeted advertisements for financial products offsets the costs of its free products and services. Credit Karma earns revenue from lenders, who pay the company when Credit Karma successfully recommends customers to the lenders.

History

Kenneth Lin, who previously founded Multilytics Marketing and worked with E-Loan and Upromise, launched Credit Karma in 2007 with co-founders Ryan Graciano and Nichole Mustard. The website went live in February 2008. Early investors included Chris Larson, CEO of Prosper, and Mark Lefanowicz, former president of E-Loan. In November 2009, Credit Karma closed a $2.5 million Series A funding round led by QED Investors with participation from SV Angel, Felicis Ventures and Founders Fund. In 2013, Credit Karma secured $30 million in Series B funding led by Ribbit Capital and Susquehanna Growth Equity. In March 2014, Credit Karma raised $85 million in Series C financing, led by CapitalG with participation from Tiger Global Management and existing investors. The company followed that with $75 million in follow on funding in September 2014 from

CapitalG CapitalG (formerly Google Capital) is the independent growth fund under Alphabet Inc. Founded in 2013, it focuses on larger, growth-stage technology companies, and invests for profit rather than strategically for Google. In addition to capital ...

Tiger Global Management Tiger Global Management, LLC (often referred to as Tiger Global and formerly known as Tiger Technology) is an American investment firm. It mainly focuses on Internet, software, consumer, and financial technology industries. Background and histo ...

and Susquehanna Growth Equity. In December 2015, Credit Karma acquired mobile notifications app developer Snowball for an undisclosed amount. As of 2015, Credit Karma had raised $368.5 million in financing, at a valuation of $3.5 billion. In 2016, Credit Karma acquired money reclamation service Claimdog. In December 2016, Credit Karma acquired AFJC Corporation, owner of OnePriceTaxes.com, to accelerate its entry into the tax preparation market. Related to the launch of tax preparation services, the company increased its workforce and opened offices in Los Angeles and Charlotte, North Carolina. In May 2017, Credit Karma launched Unclaimed Money in seven US states. The product aims to help users find unclaimed money, such as unclaimed refunds and insurance payouts. In March 2018, Credit Karma acquired personal finance company Penny for an undisclosed amount. In August, it acquired mortgage platform Approved for an undisclosed amount. In May 2019, the customers of the Noddle credit reporting service in the United Kingdom were acquired from

TransUnion TransUnion is an American consumer credit reporting agency. TransUnion collects and aggregates information on over one billion individual consumers in over thirty countries including "200 million files profiling nearly every credit-active consume ...

. In December 2020, Intuit acquired Credit Karma for approximately $7.1 billion. The acquisition was initially delayed due to a DOJ antitrust lawsuit but it was finally approved after the company agreed to divest its free tax preparation service, known as Credit Karma Tax, which was a direct competitor to Intuit's TurboTax product. In August 2021, Credit Karma reached an agreement with NBA franchise

Houston Rockets The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston. The Rockets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member team of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division. The team plays its ho ...

to have the company’s name appear on the team’s jersey’s beginning in the 2021 season.Shelby Stewart
"Houston Rockets Join Forces with Credit Karma Money,"
Houstonia, August 3, 2021. In September 2022, the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction o ...

(FTC) ordered Credit Karma to pay its users $3million for "false claims" that impacted their credit scores. Nearly one-thirds of pre-approved users who applied for credit cards were eventually denied following a credit check, costing their time and a negative impact to their credit score. Credit Karma reached a settlement with the FTC, and stated that the company is paid only when users are approved for products like credit cards.

Products and services

Credit Karma provides free credit scores and credit reports in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom from national

credit bureaus A credit bureau is a data collection agency that gathers account information from various creditors and provides that information to a consumer reporting agency in the United States, a credit reference agency in the United Kingdom, a credit repor ...

and

Equifax Equifax Inc. is an American multinational consumer credit reporting agency headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and is one of the three largest consumer credit reporting agencies, along with Experian and TransUnion (together known as the "Big Th ...

, alongside daily

credit monitoring Credit report monitoring or company tracking is the monitoring of one's credit history in order to detect any suspicious activity or changes. Companies offer such service on a subscription basis, typically granting regular access to one's credit ...

from TransUnion. Credit Karma also provides identity theft protection and credit tools, such as a Credit Score Simulator which simulates the effect of potential financial actions on a user's credit score; and tailored recommendations for credit cards and personal loans. Credit Karma Tax, its free United States tax filing service, was announced in December 2016. Credit Karma Tax does not participate in the Free File Alliance, and so is not bound by its requirements to restrict eligibility for free filing. The company's primary competitors in this area are TaxAct,

TurboTax TurboTax is a software package for preparation of American income tax returns, produced by Intuit. TurboTax is a market leader in its product segment, competing with H&R Block Tax Software and TaxAct. TurboTax was developed by Michael A. Chipm ...

and H&R Block. In November 2020,

Square, Inc. Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) is an American multinational technology conglomerate founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey and launched its first platform in 2010. It has been traded as a public company on the New York Stock Exch ...

announced it was acquiring Credit Karma Tax for $50 million and would make it a part of its

Cash App Cash App (formerly Square Cash) is a mobile payment service available in the United States and the United Kingdom that allows users to transfer money to one another (for a 1.5% fee for immediate transfer) using a mobile phone app. In September ...

unit.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://www.creditkarma.com/ Intuit Companies based in San Francisco Online financial services companies of the United States American companies established in 2007 Financial services companies established in 2007 Internet properties established in 2007 2020 mergers and acquisitions Financial services companies based in California Credit scoring Finance websites 500 Startups companies Tax software of the United States Tax preparation companies of the United States 2007 establishments in California

History

Products and services

See also

References

External links