Click here for Part I, Part II, Part IV, Part V & Part VI

Helping individuals pay back their student loans through refinancing as low as 2.13%

Nate Matherson is the CEO and co-founder of LendEDU, an online platform for student debt refinancing. LendEDU allows its users to compare rates between 12 different student loan lenders, including SoFi, LendKey, iHelp, Education Success Loans, College Ave Student Loans, Upstart, and more. Nate started the company with his dormmate, Matt Lenhard, at the University of Delaware in 2014; since then, LendEDU has graduated the Iowa Startup Accelerator and Y Combinator business accelerator programs, and has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Bloomberg, NPR, CBS News, Fox News, TechCrunch, and many others.

EDWIN WARFIELD: I’ve seen LendEDU characterized as “a LendingTree for student loans.” Does that accurately describe your model?

NATE MATHERSON: Yes, when we started everyone would like pitch us as “LendingTree for student loans,” and we still pitch ourselves that way because it’s really easy to understand. About 99% of US consumers have seen the LendingTree commercial, so everybody gets the model.

In the beginning, everyone would say, “LendingTree doesn’t do this/ LendingTree doesn’t help people compare student loans.” When we started, they didn’t—they didn’t do that. Since then, they’ve offered some student loan focused products, but nothing very substantial. LendingTree is really focused in on mortgages—that’s where they make all of their money—and for us, we’ve really just focused on student loans.

You can come to our website. You can submit a short application. We do a soft credit check, so we pull in your credit report and your credit score, but it doesn’t hurt your credit score, and we use that information to provide quotes from the different lending companies that we work with.

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Sponsored by:

ABOUT NEWMARK GRUBB KNIGHT FRANK

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (NGKF) is one of the world's leading commercial real estate advisory firms. Together with London-based partner Knight Frank and independently-owned offices, NGKF's 14,100 professionals operate from more than 400 offices in established and emerging property markets on six continents.

With roots dating back to 1929, NGKF's strong foundation makes it one of the most trusted names in commercial real estate. NGKF's full-service platform comprises BGC's real estate services segment, offering commercial real estate tenants, landlords, investors and developers a wide range of services including leasing; capital markets services, including investment sales, debt placement, appraisal, and valuation services; commercial mortgage brokerage services; as well as corporate advisory services, consulting, project and development management, and property and corporate facilities management services. For further information, visit www.ngkf.com.

NGKF is a part of BGC Partners, Inc., a leading global brokerage company servicing the financial and real estate markets. BGC's common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol (NASDAQ: BGCP). BGC also has an outstanding bond issuance of Senior Notes due June 15, 2042, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol (NYSE: BGCA). BGC Partners is led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Howard W. Lutnick. For more information, please visit http://www.bgcpartners.com/.

Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

If you're interested in reaching CEOs, please contact edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co

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