Ishaan Malhi: Trussle

Ishaan Malhi, 28
Company: Trussle
Web: www.trussle.com

When trying to buy his own home, Ishaan Malhi had three options: waste time speaking directly to individual banks, use online comparison sites to display an “overwhelming” number of options that require specialist knowledge to accurately compare, or choose between one of more than 15,000 high-street brokers to handle his application.

Frustrated at the seeming dearth of good options, Malhi felt there had to be a better way. In December 2015 he launched Startups 100-featured Trussle; said to be the UK’s first online mortgage broker, which helps homeowners avoid hassle and save money by managing their mortgage online.

The platform searches through more than 11,000 deals from 90 different lenders to find the user a mortgage that best suits their needs and continues to monitor the market to alert them if a more suitable deal becomes available later on.

The company raised £4.5m in February 2017 in a round led by Orange Growth Capital, with participation from LocalGlobe, Zoopla and Seedcamp. It now boasts a team of 46 and has launched exclusive partnerships with a number of big names in the property technology (proptech) space including Zoopla, uSwitch, Noddle, HouseSimple, and Revolut. It is currently handling more than £1bn worth of mortgages for thousands of homeowners across the UK.

It’s clear Malhi is passionate about changing the industry: he recently held a roundtable with industry leaders to address the sector’s biggest challenges and works closely with the government to tackle those problems.

With two million homeowners paying an average of £4,900 per year more than they need to in interest alone – collectively costing £10bn to homeowners per year – the mortgage sector is clearly in need of some consumer-friendly disruption, and Malhi looks like the man to do it.