Profiles · Principals
- Type
- Person
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- Executive
- Updated
The profile
Co-founder and chief operating officer of Homebase, the hourly-work software company whose timeclock data tracked the 2020 small-business collapse in real time; signatory of the March 24, 2020 fintech letter to Congress.
Rushi Patel co-founded Homebase with John Waldmann and signed the March 24, 2020 coalition letter for it. Homebase lent nothing and processed no PPP applications. What it had was a clock: its software recorded when hourly workers at tens of thousands of small businesses clocked in, and the letter quoted the result: "Hourly workers worked 59% fewer hours last Saturday" (archived letter text). He has not been charged with any crime, and no enforcement action names him or Homebase.
Homebase and his role
Homebase sells scheduling, time-tracking, payroll and team-management software to small businesses with hourly staff. Patel is chief operating officer; a January 2024 Homebase release added the chief revenue officer title (Homebase leadership release). He works from Houston, according to a May 2024 Houston Innovators Podcast interview (InnovationMap). No congressional testimony or bylined policy writing under his name was found.
The letter and the data
The March 24 letter, organized by OnDeck, asked Congress to let Treasury send "upwards of $500 billion" to small businesses through non-bank lenders and said, "We seek no gain from this crisis."
The St. Louis Fed used the Homebase dataset as a real-time read of the labor market in June 2020. It described the January 2020 panel as about 60,000 U.S. businesses and roughly 1 million hourly employees (Reading the Labor Market in Real Time St. Louis Fed On the Economy, June 9, 2020 (original: stlouisfed.org · stored capture)). Economists André Kurmann, Etienne Lalé and Lien Ta built small-business employment estimates on the same data (Kurmann, Lalé and Ta paper).
PPP and relief
SBA's loan-level PPP file lists no loan of $150,000 or more to a Homebase borrower in San Francisco. The loans under "Homebase" names in that file went to unrelated businesses in Missouri, New York and Louisiana (SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data). Smaller loans in the sub-$150,000 files were not checked against Homebase's legal name, which its filings do not state.
Since 2024
Patel remains a co-founder and executive. Homebase raised a $60 million Series D led by L Catterton in April 2024 (PR Newswire, April 3, 2024). Its January 2024 release said more than 100,000 small businesses used the product; later footprint figures come from interviews and his LinkedIn profile.
Related profiles
- Homebase co-founder John Waldmann, chief executive.
- OnDeck, which organized the March 24, 2020 letter.
- Victor Ho and Matt Doka of FiveStars, fellow software-company signatories.
Sources
- Rushi Patel of Homebase (Houston Innovators Podcast / InnovationMap, May 2024): https://houston.innovationmap.com/rushi-patel-homebase-houston-innovators-podcast-2668125388.html Rushi Patel of Homebase Houston Innovators Podcast / InnovationMap, May 2024 (stored capture)
- Rushi Patel author page (Homebase blog): https://www.joinhomebase.com/blog-author/rushi-patel Rushi Patel author page Homebase blog (stored capture)
- Homebase leadership expansion release (Patel adds CRO title; Homebase scale metrics): Homebase Continues Leadership Expansion Appointing Philip Moon As Chie 3aa12c9164a2111d (original: prnewswire.com · stored capture)
- Homebase raises $60M Series D (PR Newswire, Apr 3, 2024): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/industry-leading-team-management-app-homebase-raises-60m-series-d-to-fuel-innovation-and-expand-product-ecosystem-for-local-business-teams-302106917.html Homebase — Today Announces Its $60M Series D Financing — Led by L Catterton Growth and Supported by Emerson Collective (San Francisco) (stored capture)
- Reading the Labor Market in Real Time (St. Louis Fed On the Economy, June 9, 2020): Reading the Labor Market in Real Time St. Louis Fed On the Economy, June 9, 2020 (original: stlouisfed.org · stored capture)
- OnDeck letter to Congress (Mar 24, 2020): OnDeck letter to Congress Mar. 24, 2020 (original: ondeck.com) Fintech Coalition Letter to Congress (March 24, 2020)
- LinkedIn, Rushi Patel profile (self-reported): linkedin.com LinkedIn, Rushi Patel profile (self-reported) (stored capture)
- Kurmann, Lalé and Ta, real-time small-business employment estimates with Homebase data
- SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data,
public_150k_plus_240930.csv— original: https://data.sba.gov/dataset/ppp-foia SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data (stored capture) - OnDeck letter to Congress Mar 24, 2020 (archived text)