Lenda, an online mortgage lender based in San Francisco, announced Monday that it closed its Series A round of funding, raising $5.25 million from a group of investors.
According to the company, the funding round was led by SF Capital Group, along with CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund and inside investor, Rubicon Venture Capital.
In a release, the company said that it plans to use the money to fill “key” management positions and invest in improving its software platform.
Lenda launched in 2013, focusing on refinances, and now offers purchase mortgages as well.
Lenda currently services customers in California, Oregon, and Washington, and said that it plans to use the funding to expand its platform to additional states in 2017.
“Our mission at Lenda is to fix the broken mortgage finance system by simplifying the entire process and providing customers with what they want – honesty, simplicity and speed,” Jason van den Brand, Lenda’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said.
“Where middlemen like banks and brokers fail, we succeed,” van den Brand continued. “This new round of funding enables us to further build out our management team and expand our transformative service to more people in more states.”
Neil Wolfson, president of SF Capital Group, said that the company sees potential in Lenda’s lending model, which the company claims has saved more than $750,000 in fees and over $5 million in interest over the lives of the customers’ loans so far.
“With their disciplined focus on automation, Jason and his team are bringing the traditional mortgage process into the 21st century, for both new origination and refinancing,” Wolfson said. “Unlike many digital mortgage companies that are mainly sales organizations with outsourced middle and back offices, Lenda demonstrates true innovation by using technology to achieve scale.”
