SoFi (Social Finance) just raised $80 million. How will it celebrate? By offering mortgages and personal loans, naturally.
The company was founded by Stanford University Graduate School of Business graduates in 2011 to take on student loans. The idea was that students could finance their schooling by borrowing from alumni of their school, rather than with traditional student loans. The affinity between borrower and lender was meant to make the loans safer, even as student loan debt in U.S. now totals approximately $1.2 trillion.
Mortgages are the big daddy of consumer loan products and a startup lender offering them is kind of a big deal.
The new Series C founding round was led by Discovery Capital Management and also included Wicklow Capital, Peter Thiel, Renren and Baseline Ventures. SoFi has raised a total of $161 million to date.
SoFi has loaned $450 million to more than 5,000 members that have saved an average of $9,400 by refinancing or consolidating their student loans, the company said. Loans are typically made at a fixed 5.99% rate. Lenders can expect a 5% return on their investments.
As part of the effort to mitigate credit risk, SoFi also offers career services, unemployment insurance and an entrepreneur program for its borrowers. We would classify that as a novel approach to risk management.