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Matt Doka

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The profile

Co-founder and chief technology officer of FiveStars, the small-merchant loyalty network that signed the March 24, 2020 fintech letter, took a $4.6 million PPP loan three weeks later and sold to SumUp for $317 million in 2021.

Matt Doka co-founded FiveStars in 2011 and ran its engineering as chief technology officer. On March 24, 2020 he signed OnDeck's letter to Congress for the company, alongside his co-founder Victor Ho. On April 14, 2020, Western Alliance Bank approved a $4,628,540 PPP loan to FiveStars. SBA forgave $4,679,839.65 of it, principal plus interest, on May 26, 2021 (SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data). He has not been charged with any crime, and no enforcement action names him.

FiveStars and his role

Doka and Ho met at McKinsey & Company and built FiveStars through Y Combinator (TechCrunch, Oct. 13, 2021). Ho ran the business; Doka built the loyalty product and, later, the payments product. FiveStars sold punch-card replacement software to local merchants: a customer gave a phone number at the register and got rewards texts. The company had raised about $145.5 million before its sale (Lightspeed profile).

The letter and the loan

The coalition letter asked Congress to let Treasury direct "upwards of $500 billion" to small businesses through non-bank lenders and said, "We seek no gain from this crisis." FiveStars lent nothing. It was a borrower. FiveStars Loyalty, Inc. reported 247 jobs on the application (SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data). The company also had cash from a $52.5 million Series D it had closed before the pandemic. It held the announcement until October 2020; Ho told TechCrunch it seemed wrong to "flaunt" the money while customers suffered (TechCrunch, Oct. 15, 2020). The same article reports that foot traffic across its merchant network fell about 70 percent in the first weeks of shutdowns, and that FiveStars gave merchants more than $1 million in platform credits and free messaging. The record does not show when the Series D money arrived relative to the loan application; the TechCrunch piece says only that the round closed before the pandemic.

No personal enforcement action, civil settlement, debarment or criminal charge involving Doka was found. FiveStars' own court record is consumer litigation over its text messages under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act; the lead case, Daniel v. Five Stars Loyalty, Inc., No. 15-cv-03546-WHO (N.D. Cal.), was dismissed in November 2015 on the ground that the plaintiff consented by giving the cashier his number.

Since the sale

SumUp agreed to buy FiveStars for $317 million in October 2021 (SumUp press release, Oct. 14, 2021; Payments Dive). Doka became chief technology officer of SumUp North America. His later investing roles are self-reported on LinkedIn.

Sources

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