Online lending platform Upstart secured $35 million in Series C funding and announced it will use the capital to grow its millennial-focused service. The latest funding round was led by Third Point Ventures, with participation from existing investors, including Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital and Collaborative Fund.
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UpStart Raises $35m of Series C Funding
“People in the lending world were acting like there was none of this data,” Girouard says. “There a real difference from companies that decide to lend money but don’t have anything unique to their approach.” Girouard’s startup, called Upstart, makes three-year personal loans to millennial borrowers the company believes it can predict will grow into a healthy financial situation. Most of them are to refinance credit cards, helping young professionals adjust their interest rates down from an average of 22% to Upstart’s average of 11-12%. Many of those borrowers make more than $100,000 in annual salary and 90% have college degrees. So far Upstart has issued almost 9,000 loans and collected 36,000 repayments. “These are very high quality borrowers, just ones without a lot of credit history,” Girouard says.
