Chinese American Kenneth Lin built Credit Karma to help transform the way millions of people access and understand their credit.
As tax season arrives, millions of Americans begin their tax prep, while also learning how to improve their overall financial lives. Kenneth Lin is one tech leader who designed a company that would make credit scores free and accessible and gave everyone full control over their finances.
Born in China, Kenneth Lin immigrated to Las Vegas with his parents when he was four years old. Growing up in a first-generation immigrant household with hard working parents taught Lin early on the importance of financial literacy. His parents took jobs at casinos and bakeries in order to pay for Lin’s college tuition at Boston University where he studied mathematics and economics.
After graduation, Lin began to experiment with business ideas and ended up founding Multilytics Marketing, a data-driven marketing agency, in the 1990s. In 2006, a light bulb appeared over Lin’s head after becoming discouraged by how much it cost to obtain his credit score. He wanted to create an alternative which led to the development of Credit Karma, a platform that offered credit reports and personalized financial recommendations.
Credit Karma went live in February 2008 and was able to close a $2.5 million Series A funding round by November 2009. From there the platform only continued to expand and within a few years, millions of people were using Credit Karma to monitor their credit. By 2015, Credit Karma’s valuation grew to $3.5 billion allowing the company to expand into Canada and the United Kingdom.
As Credit Karma continued to grow, Kenneth Lin led the company to branch out into credit card applications and tax filing, helping users with free federal and state tax preparation. This completely disrupted the industry as it directly challenged other competitors that were charging high fees.
In 2020, Intuit acquired Credit Karma for $7.1 billion, one of the largest fintech acquisitions in recent decades. As of today, the platform is helping over 100 million users with credit monitoring and free financial tools. Kenneth Lin always believed that financial clarity should be easily accessible to everyone and Credit Karma was able to shift the way people interact with their finances everyday.
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