Blend, after Title365 sale, expands partnership with Doma

A little more than a month after it agreed to sell all of Title365 to Covius Services, Blend Labs is entering into "an expanded partnership" with Doma to use its artificial intelligence-powered instant decisioning technology.

"This partnership with Doma reinforces our core focus: delivering innovative, software-driven solutions that create real value for our customers," said Nima Ghamsari, head of Blend, in a press release. "By leaning into our platform's scale and partnering with best-in-class technology providers like Doma, we're able to streamline complex workflows like title and empower our lender partners to move faster, lower costs, and deliver a more transparent and modern experience to their borrowers."

Users of Blend's Mortgage and Rapid Home Lending products are integrated into Doma's Upfront Title.

Doma's publicly traded parent company was acquired by Title Resources Group last year, with its underwriting unit and technology business (Doma Technology LLC) operating as subsidiaries.

Furthermore, Doma is a participant in Fannie Mae's title insurance waiver pilot.

"This strategic investment enables us to think even bigger about how we can use technology to remove the friction and frustration from closing a mortgage," said Doma CEO Max Simkoff. "We remain incredibly excited to rapidly scale the delivery of Upfront Title through Blend's powerful platform, bringing our patented, instant title decisioning to more lenders across the country, while delivering meaningful cost savings to borrowers."

No details were provided in the press release regarding any investment.

In the release, Blend pointed to its customer Mr. Cooper as a lender whose use of Upfront Title was able to reduce loan cycle times by three days.

Mr. Cooper sold Title365 to Blend and until prior to the sale to Covius, maintained a 9.9% interest in that business.

"The Upfront Title solution from Doma and Blend proved through reduced cycle time and increased affordability to our customers that it is by far the superior solution in the market for recognizing our strategic goals," said Jeff Puckett, senior vice president and head of mortgage origination at Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Cooper is in the process of being acquired by Rocket Cos.