Wow! That was our reaction to the response we received for this year’s HW TECH100™ call for nominations. This year, more than 250 companies submitted a nomination, and we’re grateful for the interest in our efforts with this unique program.
After spending countless hours reading about different companies and the technology they’re bringing to bear (and drinking copious amounts of coffee to get through some very long meetings!), we couldn’t help but notice a few trends that may not be immediately evident to each individual company as each works to execute its own specific business model.
Some of the trends we spotted in this year’s nominations:
» 2014 delivered solid to strong growth for quite a few technology firms in the industry, certainly far more than we saw in 2013.
» Much of the industry’s focus tech-wise remains on compliance, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.
» We see a lot of companies zeroing in on the CFPB’s upcoming integrated disclosure rule specifically, and the closing process in general.
» There is a re-emerging focus on “single stacking” the mortgage process, from start to finish. We don’t want to call it an eMortgage, because this isn’t the 1990s – and that failed effort was centered on the lender’s needs; the current crop of tech players running after the “single stack” are focused far more intently on the needs of the consumer as their starting point.
» We’re starting to see some crossover between mortgage tech companies and real estate tech companies.
» We’re seeing some bold new plays from big-name venture-backed start-ups in the space, out to bring some dot-com magic into the mortgage business. It will be interesting to see what noise they’ll be able to make.
A full 60 of last year’s honorees are now two-time consecutive HW TECH100™ winners; and that also means this year, we’re pleased to welcome 40 new companies to the ranks of the HW TECH100™ for the very first time — and if anything, seeing 40 new additions serves to demonstrate the diversity of technological change now driving the present U.S. mortgage industry at nearly every level.
As you might expect, it was tough for our editors to arrive at a final list of 100 companies spanning the residential lending, servicing, investments and real estate sectors – and even tougher to arrive at a winner in each of our six categories of innovation – but we feel we’ve been able to put together a strong group of companies with demonstrated innovation.
For all of those honored this year, congratulations; and to those that didn’t make the cut, don’t despair. Some great companies simply didn’t make this year’s list, that’s how strong the competition this year was.
| View the 2015 HW TECH100™ |
