Black Knight continues its role as a serial acquirer in a number of mortgage industry verticals, signing a deal to buy marketing automation provider Top of Mind Networks for $250 million in cash.
This is Black Knight's sixth acquisition since the start of 2020. Earlier this month, the company bought eMBS, a provider of performance data and analytics on agency mortgage-backed securities. That followed March's purchase of NexSpring Financial's
The 2020 deals included
This deal is likely an attempt for Black Knight to offer the same breadth of services that Ellie Mae, a competitor in the LOS business that is now part of
On the marketing side of the mortgage business, back in 2017 Ellie Mae purchased sales lead analytics provider
Top of Mind has a wide breadth of clients, working with retail originators as well as wholesale lenders and their mortgage brokers. The company was founded in 2003; in April 2018 it received a private equity infusion from Primus Capital at an undisclosed amount.
Executives at Top of Mind who spoke with National Mortgage News editors prior to, and unrelated to, the deal's announcement considered Salesforce to be its leading competition. While Salesforce is not a mortgage-specific product, Top of Mind's CRM Surefire is.
"It's one thing to build the platform but then you have to fill it with content, creative," that Salesforce lacks, although Nick Belenky, Top of Mind's chief revenue officer, added there will be large lenders that will want to build their own systems.
As for Mortgage Returns, Belenky said "it's not a major player in the marketplace from the standpoint of growth and competitiveness, [but] it's a great product if you're already on [Ellie Mae's LOS] Encompass."
Top of Mind's business plan for 2020 anticipated client growth among small and medium sized originators, said Belenky.
"And then when the pandemic hit it magnified some of the effects that we were already anticipating," Belenky said. "On the sales side, we've quadrupled our sales teams at the beginning of 2020 that address specifically those small and medium companies … we were following where the market is going."
After the deal closes in the third quarter, Black Knight will focus on integrating Top of Mind's Surefire product with the Empower LOS and on enhancing ties with the Optimal Blue product, pricing and eligibility engine before creating new connections and integrations to serve both lenders and servicers.
"Our combined clients will be able to access additional market-leading offerings from a single, trusted provider, while we will be able to further expand Black Knight's opportunities to cross-sell our solutions through Top of Mind's broad reach among more than 850 commercial banks, mortgage banks, credit unions and mortgage brokerage companies," Black Knight CEO Anthony Jabbour said in a press release.
