Silicon Valley’s Figure Technologies, co-founded by SoFi Founder Mike Cagney, has raised $103 million in a Series C funding round, reports said on Sunday (Dec. 1).
Cagney co-founded Figure Technologies with his wife, June Ou, who serves as the company’s COO. She was previously CTO at SoFi, where Cagney stepped down as CEO in 2017 following allegations of sexual misconduct at the company.
Figure’s other co-founders include Alana Ackerson, former CEO of The Thiel Foundation, and Cynthia Chen, a recent venture partner of DHVC (Danhua Capital).
By February, Figure had raised $120 million in funding from investors, including RPM Ventures, DST Global, Ribbit Capital, DCM, DCG, Nimble Ventures and Morgan Creek. In May, the company “announced that it had closed [up to $1 billion in an] uncommitted asset-based financing facility on its own custom blockchain from Jefferies and WSFS Institutional Services.”
Figure initially made loans to older customers with money tied up in their homes. Recently, it started to look at SoFi’s market: student loan refinancing. However, SoFi has begun moving beyond student loan refinancing under the leadership of current CEO Anthony Noto.
Figure uses its own blockchain, Provenance, which has a native token, Hash. It is a “permissioned, proof-of-stake protocol that acts as a global ledger, registry and exchange across assets and markets. Members include global financial institutions that act as stakeholders, originators, lenders and someday traders on the blockchain,” according to its website.
The company’s first product was a digitally processed home equity loan, which it claims can cut approval time to five minutes. Funds are made available to users in five days — down from the 45 days that such products usually take.
It uses blockchain technology to record and track information on the loans, which, in most other ways, will be fairly typical home equity line offerings. Annual percentage rates will start at around 5.99 percent, and borrowers will be able to repay in five, seven, 10 or 15 years.
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