To the surprise of many, four-year-old technology-based mortgage company Sindeo announced the shuttering of its doors on Tuesday evening. Hailing from San Francisco, the company sprung up in 2013 with the intention of changing the way consumers shop for mortgages. Founded by Ori Zohar and CEO Nick Stamos, the start-up secured more than $15 million in seed money and hit the ground running.
“Nearly every part of the real estate process has been transformed by technology except for home financing,” Stamos told RISMedia in 2015. “Getting a mortgage is still manual, frustrating and confusing. We’ve assembled a talented team to accelerate Sindeo’s growth and bring greater efficiency, transparency and choice to the mortgage process.”
To announce the company’s closure, Stamos posted an open letter on the company’s website outlining their growth and progress over the past four years.
“While Sindeo as a startup has failed, our people did not,” Stamos wrote. “As a matter of fact, we did what everyone said couldn’t be done. We built a place where people could shop and apply for a mortgage from a robust marketplace of over 1000 loan programs, with one single application and one credit check.”
The letter also lamented the company’s finale: “Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. The majority of the staff and leadership team have had their jobs eliminated today. A very small team will be kept on for a short period of time to help our clients successfully close their loans that are already in process.”
During the hiring process, Sindeo drew top talent from a myriad of reputable industry outlets, including Trulia, Fannie Mae, Prosper Marketplace, LearnVest and more. In his final open letter, Stamos went on to encourage other companies to hire his former team: “We have very talented people who need jobs today. Hire them. They are truly innovators and some of the smartest, most dedicated people I’ve ever worked with,” he wrote.
“Endings are always hard,” echoed Sindeo chief marketing and industry officer Ginger Wilcox in a post on Facebook, “but today may be one of the most difficult. Today, we made the difficult decision to wind down Sindeo.”
Read Stamos’ full letter here.
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