When Larry Highbloom founded VINtek in his basement in the Philadelphia suburb of Wynnewood 20 years ago, his focus was a system to protect lenders against automobile dealer fraud.
In 2006, when Pennsylvania became the first state to mandate participation in its electronic lien and title program, Highbloom was ready to help with the transition. Now, 13 other states have followed suit, and business is booming for VINtek, which takes its name from “Vehicle Identification Number,” or VIN.
“The technology that we utilized to actually build that first product, we’ve changed it over to address the management of vehicle titles for vendors,” says Highbloom, who received early-stage funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partners in 1991 and also benefitted from a jobs creation loan in 2007.
VINtek, which provides software as a service in addition to imaging services, started working with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) in 1998 on converting its liens and titles to an electronic database.
“Lenders can log onto our website and simply view their liens, instead of opening the mail, looking for car titles, storing the paper title in a vault and hoping they don’ t lose it,” says Highbloom.
The average cost for lenders to process paper titles is $8-$12 per account. VINtek drops the cost to $1-$4. Highbloom has seen his company’s revenue increase by 44 percent in the last year, as 80 financial institutions have signed up for VINtek’s services since the beginning of the year. VINtek now serves 762 lenders nationwide.
Thirty-five of VINtek’s 50 employees are based in Center City Philadelphia, and Highbloom expects that number to increase by up to 20 percent by the end of the year.
Source: Larry Highbloom, VINtek
Writer: Joe Petrucci
