Zirtue

Zirtue is a Dallas-based financial technology company that operates a relationship-based, peer-to-peer lending application. The platform turns informal loans between friends, family and other trusted relationships into structured agreements, providing repayment terms, a digital promissory note and automatic bank drafts so that repayment is automated rather than negotiated between the parties. The company positions the product against high-interest credit cards, payday lenders and check-cashing services, and states a mission of driving financial inclusion for unbanked and underbanked consumers.

The current product, Zirtue Pay, is centered on "Bill Pay Loans": a borrower requests a loan from a specific person, and on approval Zirtue disburses the funds directly to the biller rather than to the borrower. The company's site cites access to more than 40,000 billers, spanning local utilities to national providers, and markets zero interest, no late fees, payment reminders, flexible repayment schedules and early payoff. Zirtue has also partnered with TruStage to make Payment Guard Insurance available to customers at no additional cost, covering situations where a borrower's income stops unexpectedly.

Alongside the consumer app, Zirtue sells an enterprise Alternative Payment Solution that embeds the loan-request flow into billers' payment options. Customers with past-due accounts can request a loan from a friend or family member and have the payment routed directly to the corporate partner, which the company frames as a way for businesses to reduce collections while offering customers a lower-cost payment path. The company describes its direct-to-creditor payment mechanism and its lending app as patent-pending.

Founding story

Dennis Cail launched Zirtue in March 2018 with co-founder Michael Seay, a Dallas financial executive who served as CFO. Cail has said the idea came from his own experience lending money to friends and family with limited success in being repaid on time, and from growing up where traditional banks were absent from certain neighborhoods, leaving residents exposed to payday lenders and check-cashing services. Cail began working with technology while serving in the Navy, later earned a computer science degree and an MBA from Southern Methodist University, and previously held roles at IBM Global Services, Uptown Financial Group, PwC and Convince Capital Partners.

Business model

Zirtue operates a two-sided model: a consumer app through which borrowers request loans from individual lenders in their personal network, and a B2B "Alternative Payment Solution" sold to enterprises and Fortune 500 partners in sectors including energy, medical and telecommunications, which embed Zirtue as a payment option so customers with past-due bills can be funded by friends and family and have payment sent directly to the biller.

The company originally charged users a monthly subscription fee, waived during a COVID-19 relief program, and subsequently pivoted from the subscription toward a no-fee consumer model with a focus on a B2B revenue stream from corporate partners.

Traction

More than $10 million in loans had been processed on the platform as of January 2020; by May 2023 the company reported more than $50 million in loans for bills and personalized IOUs processed. The app has been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of users, and the company reported 400% growth in its last fiscal year in both 2021 and 2023 coverage. Total venture funding reported was $6 million as of December 2021 and $6.6 million as of May 2023.

Latest developments

Zirtue's current offering is branded Zirtue Pay, supporting direct bill payment to more than 40,000 billers with zero interest and no late fees, and includes TruStage Payment Guard Insurance provided to customers at no additional cost. In March 2023 the company launched Repayment Request for migrating pre-existing informal loans onto the platform, and in May 2023 co-founder and CEO Dennis Cail was named a founder of the year on Afrotech's Future List.