Itria Ventures: FTC Settlement, Class Action, and License Revocation

Itria Ventures LLC is a Delaware-based financial services company that funds and services small-business loans for the fintech firm Biz2Credit. It draws most public attention for a $33 million Federal Trade Commission settlement in March 2024 over deceptive Paycheck Protection Program practices, but its record also includes a short-lived class action over its core lending product, a fraud dispute with Provident Bank that produced a published appellate decision, and a brief California lender license revocation.¹

What Itria Ventures Is

Itria Ventures is a wholly owned subsidiary of Biz2Credit Inc., a fintech company founded in 2007 and headquartered at One Penn Plaza in New York City. The two entities share ownership, officers, employees, and office space, and the FTC’s 2024 complaint described them as a “common enterprise.”² Rohit Arora is CEO; his brother Ramit Arora is president.³

Itria’s primary product is revenue-based financing, in which the company purchases a business’s future receivables at a discount. It also funds term loans in partnership with Cross River Bank.⁴ Biz2Credit says it has helped more than 200,000 companies secure over $8 billion in financing, and it ranked as the seventh-largest PPP lender in 2021.⁵

The 2024 FTC Settlement

On March 18, 2024, the FTC sued Biz2Credit and Itria Ventures in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York over how they handled PPP loan applications between May 2020 and May 2021.⁶ Two days later, Judge Jennifer L. Rochon signed a stipulated order entering a $33 million judgment against both companies, jointly and severally, along with a permanent injunction. The money was due within seven days and earmarked for consumer redress.⁷

What the FTC Alleged

The core allegation was that Biz2Credit advertised PPP processing times of 10 to 14 business days when the actual average was roughly 25 business days, more than double the advertised figure. Tens of thousands of applicants waited more than two months for any final determination. Internally, staff described the volume of applications as a “firehose” they could not manage, yet the company continued making the same timing claims until nearly the end of the program.²

The FTC also accused the company of trapping borrowers. When a business applied, Biz2Credit immediately obtained an SBA “e-tran” number, often before any underwriting. That number blocked the applicant from submitting a PPP application to any other lender. When frustrated borrowers asked the company to withdraw their applications so they could go elsewhere, Biz2Credit routinely ignored those requests, according to the complaint. Status updates and responses to consumer inquiries were sometimes absent for months.

Because PPP funds were first-come, first-served and ran out in mid-2021, the delays mattered. Roughly 40% of Biz2Credit applicants, the highest cancellation and rejection rate among the ten largest PPP lenders, never received funding at all.²

What the Settlement Requires

Beyond the $33 million payment, the court order bars Biz2Credit and Itria Ventures from misrepresenting processing times, likelihood of approval, application status, or material facts about government benefits programs. It also requires the companies to let borrowers promptly withdraw or cancel applications, obtain status updates, and submit documents through the same channels used to apply.¹ The case was formally closed the day the order was entered.⁷ The $33 million, combined with a separate $26 million settlement the FTC announced the same day against fintech Womply, produced the agency’s largest damages recovery under Section 19 of the FTC Act.

How the Company Responded

Biz2Credit settled without admitting wrongdoing. The company called the settlement “a pragmatic business decision given the cost and uncertainty of litigation” and maintained that its 10-to-14-day estimate was accurate for what it called “bona fide” applications. Longer processing times, the company said, reflected careful review of applications it ultimately determined were fraudulent or ineligible.⁸

The InvenTel Class Action Over Revenue-Based Financing

In February 2022, InvenTel.TV LLC, a New Jersey direct-response television marketing company, filed a putative class action against Itria Ventures and Biz2Credit in U.S. District Court in New York. The complaint alleged that Itria’s future receivables agreements were disguised loans carrying usurious interest rates.⁹

InvenTel described two financing agreements, each advancing more than $244,000 with a total repayment obligation of $305,000. One required daily payments of $1,452.38 over 210 days, an annualized rate of roughly 43%; the other required $1,613.76 daily over 189 days, roughly 47%. Although the contracts were structured as purchases of future receivables, meaning repayment should have depended on the business’s actual revenue, InvenTel alleged Itria assumed no real risk and treated all amounts as unconditionally due, making the deals functionally loans subject to New York usury law. The complaint added claims of fraudulent misrepresentation, racketeering, and violations of New York General Business Law.

The case, No. 1:22-cv-01059, was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice by the plaintiff on March 2, 2022, about three weeks after filing. Court records give no reason for the dismissal.⁹

Fraud Dispute With Provident Bank

Itria was on the receiving end of fraud counterclaims from Provident Bank in a dispute tied to a loan to a company called Lotus Exim. Provident alleged that Itria, Biz2Credit, and Ramit Arora personally made misrepresentations and concealed critical information to induce Provident to extend financing.¹⁰

In 2020, Justice Joel M. Cohen of the Commercial Division in New York County found that Provident had adequately alleged justifiable reliance, noting that the concealed information was “peculiarly within the Itria Parties’ knowledge” and could not have been discovered through public data. He denied the motion to dismiss the fraud claims. The Appellate Division, First Department, largely affirmed in 2021. It did dismiss the tortious interference claim against Ramit Arora individually, finding the complaint failed to allege he acted with personal malice rather than in his corporate capacity. The tortious interference claim against Biz2Credit survived.¹⁰

California Lender License Revocation

Itria Ventures holds a California Financing Law license, No. 60DBO-35839, which was briefly revoked at the end of 2019. The company missed its October 31, 2019 annual assessment deadline and had not notified the state of an address change, so it never received the follow-up notices. The California Department of Business Oversight, now the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, summarily revoked the license effective December 30, 2019.¹¹

A March 2020 consent order rescinded the revocation. Itria paid its $250 annual assessment plus $3,000 in administrative penalties and agreed to a desist-and-refrain order requiring timely payment of future assessments.¹²

1
Federal Trade Commission. FTC Actions Against Companies Making Deceptive Pandemic Loan Promises Lead to Record $59 Million in Damages
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Federal Trade Commission. FTC v. Biz2Credit Complaint and Exhibits
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Biz2Credit. Management Team
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Biz2Credit. Latest News
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Biz2Credit. Frequently Asked Questions
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Federal Trade Commission. FTC v. Biz2Credit, Inc.
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CourtListener. Federal Trade Commission v. Biz2Credit, Inc.
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Fintech Futures. Two US Fintechs to Pay a Total of $59M to Settle FTC Charges Related to PPP
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ClassAction.org. Itria Ventures Hit With Class Action Over Allegedly Shady Money Lending Based on Future Receivables
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Justia. Itria Ventures LLC v. Provident Bank
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California DFPI. Enforcement Action: Itria Ventures LLC
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California DFPI. Consent Order, Itria Ventures LLC