Making of a Mortgage King Hinges on Super Bowl Ad, Cards

Nima Ghamsari’s Blend makes its public market debut on Friday
The startup processed $1.4 trillion in mortgages last year

Blend CEO Nima GhamsariPhotographer: Rainer Hosch/Blend

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By Jenny Surane, Katherine Chiglinsky and Mary Biekert

July 16, 2021 at 11:04 AM UTC

Updated on

July 16, 2021 at 1:17 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Nima Ghamsari knew he needed to nab a big customer.

He’d spent years criss-crossing America’s heartland for meetings with top mortgage executives, pitching them on partnering with his firm, San Francisco-based Blend Labs Inc. The promise: His software would make it so they wouldn’t need to collect paper documents from customers when underwriting home loans, a costly endeavor that can take weeks to process.