Grow (formerly Grouplend) was a private Canadian financial technology company, headquartered in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

and founded by Kevin Sandhu and Daniel Cowx in 2014. It started as a technology driven online consumer lender. Grow's platform enabled borrowers to obtain a loan, which were then sold to private accredited investors and institutional investors. The company later evolved its business model to partner with banks and credit unions to provide its proprietary technology to power traditional financial services companies' digital presence. On February 10, 2016 Grow announced its first partnership with a Canadian financial institution:

First West Credit Union First West Credit Union (First West) is British Columbia’s third largest credit union with nearly $16.9 billion in total assets and assets under administration and more than 250,000 members. Its core business is traditional banking, the provisio ...

. The partnership enabled members of First West Credit Union to access the range of Grow product offerings directly through the

n financial institution. The announcement with First West was followed on February 25, 2016, by a second partnership announcement with

Conexus Credit Union Conexus Credit Union is one of Saskatchewan's largest credit unions. Conexus has over $8 billion in consolidated assets, more than 130,000 members, and 30 branches across the province. More than 900 employees and sales professionals are located t ...

, the largest credit union in

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

, in order to bring its online lending services to the province. In August 2015 they closed their series A round of financing at $10.2 million, a round that was led by Vancouver angel investors Markus Frind, founder of dating website

Plenty of Fish Plenty of Fish is a Canadian online dating service, popular primarily in Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Brazil, and the United States. It is available in nine languages. The company, which is b ...

, and Lance Tracey, founder of

Internet hosting An Internet hosting service is a service that runs servers connected to the Internet, allowing organizations and individuals to serve content or host services connected to the Internet. A common kind of hosting is web hosting. Most hosting provi ...

services company Peer 1 Hosting. Grow was acquired by

ATB Financial ATB Financial is a financial institution and Crown corporation wholly owned by the province of Alberta, the only province in Canada with such a financial institution under its exclusive ownership. Originally established as Alberta Treasury Br ...

in November 2019.

References

External links

Grow Technologies websiteFirst West Credit Union websiteConexus Credit Union website
Companies based in Vancouver {{finance-company-stub