Upstart, a US-based online lending platform that counts internet company Google among its backers, has secured $35m in series C funding.
Third Point Ventures, the venture capital subsidiary of investment adviser Third Point, led a round that included Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, and Collaborative Fund, all existing investors in Upstart.
Upstart runs an online lending platform that assesses potential borrowers not on their credit scores but on other signifiers such as academic and work history. It runs more than 68,000 simulations on each potential customer to model possible events and outcomes over the term of the prospective loan.
The platform officially began operations in May 2014 and has since issued more $128m in finance to a total of almost 9,000 customers. Upstart CEO Dave Girouard said in a blog post its loans are backed by $800m in capital from institutional investors.
Founded in 2012 by Girouard, the former president of Google’s business subsidiary Google Enterprise, Upstart raised $1.75m in a seed round featuring Google Ventures, Google’s corporate venturing subsidiary, First Round, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates, Crunchfund and Mark Cuban.
Upstart secured an additional $5.9m in a 2013 series A round led by First Round that included Khosla, Collaborative Fund, Founders Fund, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Marc Benioff, and Scott Banister.