Sidley represented small business loan (SMB) and account origination platform, Linear Financial Technologies, in its sale to Amount, a banking technology provider offering account opening, loan origination, and point-of-sale (BNPL) financing solutions. Linear’s solution set is complementary to Amount’s retail banking and BNPL solutions for consumer loans. Linear’s platform simplifies the borrowing and account opening experience for small business owners and streamlines loan and deposit origination workflows for a broad range of SMB products, ranging from business credit cards, loans, lines of credit, and SBA loans. Following the acquisition, Linear was rebranded and operates as Amount Small Business. Sam Graziano, CEO of Linear, joined Amount’s executive team and became Head of Amount Small Business.
The Sidley team was led by Alexis Cooper (M&A and Private Equity) and Tracey Nicastro (Global Finance), and included Brendan McCartney, Natalie Kraft, Thomas Johnson, and Sylvia Baraniewski (M&A and Private Equity); Elizabeth Chen, Karen Kazmerzak, and Jamie Sadler (Antitrust/Competition); John Van De Weert (Banking and Financial Services); Alexandra Peterson (Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation); Kathy Cabral, Ram Burshtine, and Allison Satyr (Global Finance); Scott Goldstein (Insurance); Joshua Rovine (Investment Funds); Galit Knotz (Labor and Employment); Elizabeth McCloy (Real Estate); Jim Ducayet and Elizabeth Austin (Securities and Shareholder Litigation); Alvin Wang, Ryan Kelly, Andy Lau, Andrew Smith, Christian Brause, Nicholas Brown, Zackary Pullin, and Eric Grosshandler (Tax); and Mark Kaufmann (Technology and Life Sciences Transactions).