Upstart (company)

Upstart Network Inc.
Type of business Private
Type of site
 Personal finance, Financial Technology
Available in English
Founded April 2012
Headquarters San Carlos, California
Founder(s) Dave Girouard
Anna Counselman
Paul Gu
Employees 85
Website www.upstart.com
Commercial Yes
Current status Active

Upstart is an online lending marketplace that provides personal loans using non-traditional variables, like education and employment, to predict creditworthiness.

The founding team includes Dave Girouard, former VP of Apps for Google, Paul Gu, a Thiel Fellow, and Anna Counselman, former Manager of Global Enterprise Customer Programs and Gmail Consumer Operations at Google.[1]

Upstart first launched in April 2012 with an Income Share Agreement (ISA) product, which enabled individuals to raise money by contracting to share a percent of their future income. In May 2014, Upstart pivoted away from this product and toward the personal loan marketplace.[2] With this pivot, Upstart began offering a traditional 3-year loan, and has since expanded to offer a 5-year loan product as well.

Upstart developed an income and default prediction model to determine creditworthiness of a potential borrower. This means that in addition to traditional underwriting criteria—FICO score, credit report, and income—the Upstart underwriting considers academic variables—colleges attended, area of study, GPA, and standardized test scores—and work history to develop a statistical model of the borrower’s financial capacity and personal propensity to repay.[3]

Upstart raised a $1.75M seed round from First Round Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates, Google Ventures, Crunchfund and Mark Cuban. They subsequently raised a series A round of $5.9M which included new investors Eric Schmidt (Google Executive Chairman), Marc Benioff, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, and Collaborative Fund.[1] Jessica Jackley and Bob Kerrey serve as advisors to the company. Most recently, Upstart raised a series C round of $35M from Third Point Capital in June 2015.

Upstart issues personal loans ranging from $1,000- $50,000 with an origination fee between 1% and 6% of the amount borrowed. Upstart has tens of thousands of borrowers and a blend of both retail and institutional investors.

Coverage

Upstart has been covered by Forbes,[4] Wired,[5] Mother Nature Network,[6] VentureBeat,[7] Fortune,[8] Entrepreneur,[9] and Silicon Valley Business Journal.[10]

Economist Bryan Caplan blogged about Upstart on his blog, EconLog.[11]

Additional news mentions include the New York Times,[12] Lend Academy,[13] NY Daily News,[14] and Gigaom.[15]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "About Upstart". Upstart. Retrieved 20 December 2012.
  2. ↑ Ha, Anthony (2014-08-08). "Former Google Executive Dave Girouard Launches Crowdfunding Service Upstart, Raises $1.75M". TechCrunch.
  3. ↑ Keohane, Dennis (2014-04-29). "Upstart keeps innovating lending models to finance the young and ambitious". BetaBoston.
  4. ↑ Griswold, Alison (2012-08-10). "Upstart: Can Crowdfunding Your Education And Career Really Work?". Forbes.
  5. ↑ Mitroff, Sarah. "Upstart Is Crowdfunding for Dreamers". WIRED. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
  6. ↑ Agence France-Presse, “New U.S. website lets 'crowd' fund college grad startups”, Mother Nature Network, 8 August 2012.
  7. ↑ Farr, Christina (2012-08-08). "A brainchild of ex-Googlers, Upstart lets you invest in people". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
  8. ↑ "Ex-Google exec brings Kickstarter model to careers of new grads". Fortune. 2012-08-08. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
  9. ↑ Goodman, Michelle (2013-09-12). "New Crowdfunding Site Predicts Future Earnings". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
  10. ↑ "Former Google exec is turning your student debt into someone else's investment opportunity - Silicon Valley Business Journal". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
  11. ↑ Caplan, Bryan (2013-08-07). "Upstart Bleg: Help Paul Gu Help You". Retrieved 2013-09-15.
  12. ↑ Sullivan, Paul (2013-06-07). "Upstart Matches Young People With Investors". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
  13. ↑ "Upstart Closes a $35M Funding Round Led by Third Point Ventures - Lend Academy". Lend Academy. 2015-07-16. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
  14. ↑ "Upstart lets new grads fund their dreams". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
  15. ↑ Darrow, Barb (2013-04-22). "Superstar investors give Upstart $5.9M for its first birthday". gigaom.com. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
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