Stilt Brings In $100M Debt Financing To Power Immigrant Loan Product

Stilt, which is providing financial services for immigrants, raised a $100 million debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank to support its lending product and new checking account product for customers and people without credit.

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More than 1 million immigrants arrive in the U.S. each year, according to the Pew Research Center, and Rohit Mittal, co-founder and CEO of Stilt, estimates 15 million immigrants in the country right now face the challenge of access to financial services.

“When I moved to the U.S., we didn’t have credit,” Mittal said. “I wasn’t able to rent an apartment, so I was sleeping on my co-founder’s [Priyank Singh] couch, who also moved to the U.S. They were asking for credit scores, and I had none of those things.”

The new funding gives the San Francisco-based company $225 million in total debt facilities, Mittal told Crunchbase News. Stilt has known equity in the amount of $7.5 million from a May 2020 seed round for total funding of $232.5 million since the company was founded in 2015.

Nick Christian, head of specialty finance at Silicon Valley Bank, said the bank is supporting Stilt as it expands its portfolio of offerings for immigrants and individuals without credit: “Stilt is in a strong financial position and we have been impressed with the company’s organic customer acquisition,” he added. “We look forward to expanding our relationship as the company matures to its next phase of growth.”

As loan volumes grow and more performance data is gathered, the debt facility will go to fund loans and reach $350 million in annualized loan volume, Mittal said. Indeed, more startups are eyeing debt facilities as a way to increase their balance sheets during late-stage financing.

“The funds will be used for the personal loan product we have developed,” he added. ‘We use performance data, and this will enable us to scale and reduce the cost of capital.”

In addition, Stilt launched a checking account product back in September with Evolve Bank & Trust for immigrants and people without Social Security numbers. The number of active checking accounts is growing 50 percent month over month, Mittal said.

Stilt is now able to use the checking account history to offer customers loan pre-approvals that take one click to apply, and the money is deposited in 30 seconds, he added. There is also a remittance product that enables customers to transfer funds to 50 countries at affordable rates.

“We want to add more products that can help financial aspects for our target market, like credit cards, mortgages and insurance from partners,” Mittal said. “Our goal is to grow with our customers. Eventually, some people will want to buy cars or have a credit card.”

Photo of Stilt co-founders Priyank Singh and Rohit Mittal and mobile platform courtesy of Stilt
Blogroll illustration: Li-Anne Dias