Better.com
American mortgage origination firm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Better Home & Finance Holding Company doing business as Better or Better.com, headquartered in New York City, provides mortgage origination and related services such as title insurance and home insurance online in the United States and United Kingdom.[4]
 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Nasdaq: BETR | |
| Industry | Financial services |
| Founded | February 24, 2014 |
| Founder | Vishal Garg |
| Headquarters | 1 World Trade Center, New York City, US |
Key people |
|
| Services | Broker for mortgage origination, title insurance, and home insurance |
| Revenue |  $91 million (2024) |
| -$206 million (2024) | |
| Total assets | $913 million (2024) |
| Total equity |  -$58 million (2024) |
| Owner | SoftBank Vision Fund (16.9%) Activant Capital Group (16.7%) Vishal Garg (12.7%) Pine Brook Capital (6.6%) Novator Partners (5.7%) Ontario Pension Plan (3.9%) Riaz Valani (2.9%) |
| Website | better |
| Footnotes / references [1][2][3] | |
Better processes, underwrites and closes mortgages for lenders and then sells them to secondary investors.[5][6]
History
In February 2014, Vishal Garg founded the company after he and his wife had a negative experience obtaining a mortgage to buy their first home.[7]
In 2016, the company launched Better Mortgage and was approved to be a Fannie Mae seller/servicer.[8]
The number of people from traditionally underrepresented groups buying homes through Better's mortgage lending platform increased significantly in 2019, a development that The New York Times suggested was linked to the company's digital processes and minimal reliance on human brokers.[9][10]
In April 2021, the company received $500 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund at a $6 billion valuation.[11][12]
In July 2021, Better acquired Trussle, a UK digital mortgage broker, for $9 million.[13] In May 2025, it was sold to OneDome.[14]
In September 2021, Better acquired Property Partner, a London-based crowdfunding platform, later that same year.[15]
In December 2021, Garg laid off 900 employees by videoconference and locked their electronic devices from accessing company material.[16][17][18] Garg also made comments to employees that were deemed "unruly", telling employees that he "hired the wrong people" and referring to employees as "slow," "dumb," and "embarrassing".[19] After much criticism, Garg took approximately a month off, returning in January 2022.[20][21][22] The company was also criticized for adding 1,000 workers in India during the same year.[23]
In May 2022, Harit Talwar was hired as chairperson.[24] In August 2022, a list of 250 or more US-based employees who were about to be terminated in another round of layoffs was leaked internally, leading to the termination of the employees who leaked the information.[25] The company was accused of circumventing the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 by laying people off in groups of 249 employees, under the 250 minimum that triggers the act.[26]
In February 2023, the company announced a deal with Amazon whereby Amazon employees are able to pledge their stock as collateral for a loan to cover the down payment on a house purchase, albeit at a slightly higher interest rate.[27]
In August 2023, the company became a public company via a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company that included an investment from SoftBank Vision Fund; shares plummeted immediately after the merger.[28][29][30]
In June 2022, a former senior executive at Better filed a lawsuit alleging that the company misled investors in its filings. After an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission found no issues the Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the case.[31][32]