Better Mortgage went through the typical stages of a startup: in 2014, its founders started a company with the goal of re-engineering the mortgage process.
During the following year, Better Mortgage closed $30 million dollars in Series A funding and was approved as a Fannie Mae seller/servicer, establishing relationships with 17 top mortgage investors. In early 2015 they acquired the domain BetterMortgage.com, most likely on Sedo.
That same year, in 2015, they acquired the domain Better.com for $1,820,000 dollars in a private transaction. Source: NameBio.
Registered in 1996, Better.com apparently changed hands when its long-holding registrant, founder of OnRWeb, sold the domain.
In 2016, Better Mortgage launched as Better.com, matching the domain with the brand.
Fast forward to late 2021, when financial difficulties led the company to seek new ways to cut costs, one of which wrote history as the biggest single layoff in history via a Zoom call.
That was about 9% of its workforce on a Zoom webinar receiving the note that more than 900 employees on the call were being terminated.
It was a surprise: According to news reports, Better.com announced in May it was going public through an SPAC and last week received $750 million in cash as part of the deal. The company is prepared to have more than $1 billion on its balance sheet. To date, Better.com has done $7.9 billion USD in home loans and $1 billion in insurance, according to Crunchbase.
Better.com is a great domain and brand. Were the layoffs for better, or worse?
