Fred Schebesta studied for a Bachelor of Finance at Macquarie University. In 2002 he and Frank Restuccia started Freestyle Media, a digital agency. In 2007 Q Ltd bought it and the two stayed on to run it until late 2009.
They launched finder.com.au in 2006 as a family of niche sites, including creditcardfinder.com.au. Revenue came from referral fees when readers took up a card, loan or policy. The founders shared a house with five other people for about two and a half years while money was tight.
Jeremy Cabral joined in 2008. The sites were later merged into one brand, and Finder launched in the United States in 2015, starting again from scratch.
Finder took no outside equity for about 15 years. In December 2021 it raised A$30 million from Future Now Capital at a pre-money valuation of A$650 million, with annual revenue of about A$96 million and net profit of about A$1.7 million for FY21. Cabral later stepped down as COO after 16 years.