Nick Elders launched Minneapolis-based Ignify Technologies in October 2020, hoping to help small businesses struggling during the pandemic. Ignify is a public benefit corporation that offers SPARK, its cloud-based platform, to help traditional financial institutions and nonprofit community development financial institutions (CDFIs) scale small business lending operations by digitizing and automating processes, saving them both time and money. During the pandemic, SPARK has helped customers originate more than 100,000 PPP loans totaling $10 billion. By October 2021, Ignify had 16 employees and 35 financial institution customers, and had originated nearly $12 billion in loans. Elders’ long-term goal is to connect its network of banks and CDFIs on the same origination platform resulting in a more inclusive small business ecosystem.