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Matthew "Matt" Mandell

Executive

PPP
Type
Person
Role
Executive
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PPP
Updated

The profile

Founder and chief executive of Paynerd, the marketing firm that, per Blueacorn's cash-flow statement as published by the House Select Subcommittee, received roughly $666 million of Blueacorn's PPP fees. Party to Delaware civil litigation with the Blueacorn entities. He has not been charged with any crime.

Identity and role

Matthew Mandell is the founder and chief executive of Pay Nerd LLC (styled "PayNerd," and an affiliated entity, Paynerdier LLC), a marketing and lead-generation business. During the pandemic he was simultaneously a Strategic Advisor to Blueacorn, the PPP loan-service provider, while Paynerd was the outside vendor Blueacorn paid to deliver borrower leads. He is based in the Miami–Fort Lauderdale area.

Biography

Mandell's pre-pandemic record in public sources is self-reported. His own LinkedIn and personal pages describe an MBA from George Washington University and a career in business development, payments, and marketing ventures. LinkedIn lists long-running roles at Mandell Enterprises, GAM Payments, FeeFighters.com, and Founder Institute, plus a stint at Raincoats, Inc., the operator of Condomania.com and LubeZilla.com, which it says was sold in September 2020. Paynerd itself markets back-office services built around financial-services providers: underwriting, onboarding and support, business intelligence, finance and lead generation.

The company and its PPP role

Blueacorn was an agent, not a lender. It took applications, reviewed them, and sent approved files to two CDFI lenders of record, Prestamos and Capital Plus, which originated the loans and paid Blueacorn the agent fees. Blueacorn collected about $1.08 billion in those fees across the program.

Of that, Paynerd received roughly $666 million. The figure comes from Blueacorn's own Simplified Cash-Flow Statement (Bates BA-SSCC-0000121-22), produced to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis under subpoena and reproduced in its December 1, 2022 report. Against the 739,282 applications Blueacorn told the Subcommittee it had approved and sent to lenders for funding, $666 million works out to roughly $901 per approved-and-forwarded application.

The $666 million was about 61% of Blueacorn's fees. Under the arrangement, Paynerd would market the PPP product, drive applicants to Blueacorn, and be paid for the leads that turned into funded loans.

The Subcommittee wrote that it was "likely" Mandell who complained that Blueacorn's reviewers were flagging too many applications as potential fraud. That is the committee's inference, not a finding by any court.

Their own relief

No PPP or EIDL loan to Mandell personally has surfaced in the public SBA disclosure data. There is no public Paynerd financial statement showing what the firm did with the $666 million or how it was split internally.

Not criminally charged. As of mid-2026, no federal or state indictment names Matthew Mandell, Paynerd, or Paynerdier.

Civil litigation:

  • Fin Cap Inc. & Blueacorn PPP, LLC v. PayNerd LLC (Delaware Superior Court, Complex Commercial Litigation Division, C.A. N21C-12-118 MMJ CCLD; Judge Mary M. Johnston; reporter cite 2023 WL 5543736). Blueacorn's parent sued Paynerd, Paynerdier, Mandell, and Taylor Hendricksen in December 2021, pleading fraudulent inducement, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, unjust enrichment, promissory estoppel, and a violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act. In an August 16, 2023 opinion on the motions to dismiss Paynerd's counterclaims and third-party claims, the court granted in part and denied in part. It denied the motion to dismiss brought by third-party defendant Nate Reis, letting Paynerd's counterclaims proceed, including fraud in the inducement against Fin Cap, Blueacorn, and Barry Calhoun. (Reis, Spirakus, and Calhoun were named as third-party defendants on Paynerd's side of the case.)
  • Blueacorn PPP, LLC v. Pay Nerd LLC (Delaware Court of Chancery, C.A. 2023-0414-MMJ; opinion decided Jan 29, 2024, unsealed Feb 8, 2024). The court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss Blueacorn's complaint. On the other side of the docket, it found that Paynerd had adequately pleaded its own counterclaims for fraudulent inducement against Blueacorn and against Nate Reis personally, alleging Blueacorn "made misrepresentations of then-existing operational capacities that were based on facts known to the speakers at the time."

The civil claims and counterclaims are allegations, not findings; the merits remain to be tried.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

Mandell continues to run Paynerd, which still markets itself to financial-services providers. His LinkedIn page also lists him as principal of Phase3, GAM Payments, FeeFighters.com, and Mandell Enterprises, with Phase3 framed around launching and scaling financial, payments, and banking products. The Delaware litigation between the Paynerd parties and the Blueacorn parties remained live into 2025.

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

Sources

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