A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Miki and I want to congratulate Jerry Nemorin, founder and CEO of Lendstreet, a fintech startup. As a board member I’ve been with Jerry from the start and know how hard he’s worked, as well as how much he cares.

He cares about his team, his company, and his investors, but most of all he cares about Lendstreet’s ability to help its customers to a better life.

Lendstreet restructures debt for consumers in financial distress. A badly kept secret is that healthcare expenses is the number one reason that people go bankrupt and families lose their homes. In fact, most middle and low income families live on a shoestring — the average family only has  a few hundred dollars in the bank to deal with emergencies.

As a consequence, a seemingly small thing like the car breaking down can put an entire family spiraling downward to homelessness. Lendstreet interrupts this cycle by using technology to restructure the debt and ensure that the family has the necessary liquidity to get through hard times. In addition, they educate people on financial best practices, including how to improve their credit score.

In essence, Lendstreet provides technology-based solutions and resources that reduce consumer debt, increase credit scores, and improve savings. Since its inception, Lendstreet has helped customers successfully reduce their debt by nearly 40 percent and improve their credit score by an average of 100 points.

Lendstreet was founded in 2013, and Jerry has spent the intervening years building its business to support some of the most vulnerable people in this country. Sure, he’s raised money, a difficult proposition for a business focused on helping the bottom 80% of the population, instead of the top 20%.

He has been relentlessly tenacious in his drive to bring the company and its products to market and in raising the necessary capital to be able to help an increasing number of people.

This week he reached an important milestone in his quest — he managed to get top institutional investors to participate in funding a solution to the tune of $120 million.

“Lower and middle-income Americans are struggling and relying on high interest credit cards for their day-to-day survival. These investments will enable us to scale our platform and reach more consumers who are struggling with too much debt. Prudential, CIM, Radicle Impact, and our other investors share our vision of finally giving mainstream Americans access to an equitable and transparent alternative for their mounting credit card debt.”–Jerry Nemorin

My hope is that by helping people get back on a solid financial footing, by reducing their debt and coaching them on spending wisely, they will be able to stabilize economically and generate upward mobility, as opposed to treading water or, much worse, drowning.

CONGRATULATIONS,  and !

(In 2013 Jerry covered The Innovation Summit for MAPping Company Success.)

Image credit: HikingArtist

I attended my first AlwaysOn Innovation Summit this past week and I was really impressed with the companies, ideas, and technologies highlighted during the summit.  We often read about new companies launching products that are merely a twist on the social network, e-commerce, or the latest industry deemed “ripe for disruption.” The companies highlighted in the Summit certainly had more to offer.

As a capitalist and a social entrepreneur, I believe in the power of technology to improve lives across the socio-economic spectrum.  There are significant economic opportunities in providing solutions to real problems faced by families in the US and the emerging world, that are often overlooked for some reason or another.  The AO Innovation Summit highlighted many companies with technologies and ideas with the potential to change economies, alleviate poverty and, most importantly, save lives.

We heard from Mike Cheiky of V-Grid Energy Systems, whose company focuses on providing cheap energy to help connect the rest of the world to the internet.  More impressive still, the by-product of their process is a fertilizer that can be used in those same regions to improve agriculture and alleviate food-security issues.  Children go hungry every day, and governments have been overthrown as a result of food prices.

The panel on the changing landscape of education stood out for the immense potential impact that technology is having in this area.  We heard from Daphne Koller of Coursera, a company with a mission to provide free and open access to elite education.  In a world where the cost of education is raised beyond the reach of most families, this will undoubtedly improve lives both domestically and abroad.  Imagine a kid in Haiti learning to code on Coursera and creating the next great technology firm.  Speaking of which, Tim Draper, founder of Draper University, is doing what most people say can’t be done – teaching entrepreneurship.  Draper University’s 8-week program fosters skills and provides the kind of experience that can help set-off the light bulb for the next generation’s Steve Jobs or Elon Musk.

The future of fashion will not simply be about the designer on the label, it will benefit from beautifully designed technology solutions that improve our daily lives.  At the AO Innovation Summit, we were treated to a new wave of wearable technologies that will help us be more efficient, assess our health, and provide critical insights.  Dave Icke of MC10 demonstrated their ground-breaking technology that allows parents to monitor their sick baby’s temperature with a simple patch.  Now imagine the infinite possibilities of such a technology and its ability to lower the infant mortality rates in the emerging world.

From discussions with a variety of companies at the Summit, it’s clear there is a cultural shift within our industry.  Businesses should have a lasting positive impact on our community, as well as prove to be sound investment for our partners.  For too long those propositions have been polarized.  At the AO Innovations Summit I was pleased to see more businesses sharing our vision of the future.  I am not saying these solutions will solve all of the world’s problems, but it gives me hope that our best and brightest are tackling real world problems and not merely catering to the latest fad.

Jerry Nemorin is Founder and CEO of LendStreet Financial Inc., a social lending platform whose mission is to help people get out of debt, rebuild their credit, and get a fresh start.