Mar 23, 2022

Stilt , a financial services startup focusing on assisting immigrants, raised $14 million in a Series A equity funding round and a $100 debt facility for loans to customers, according to reports. The equity funding was led by Link Ventures with participation by Petrushka Investments, Hillsven Capital, Gokul Rajaram, former Stripe COO Claire Hughes Johnson, Checkout.com CTO Ott Kaukver, Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra and others. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, the startup has raised a total of $375 million in equity and debt financing since launching in 2015. The company was founded by Priyank Singh and CEO Rohit Mittal when they were immigrants on visas. Backed by Y Combinator, Stilt has extended loans to people from more than 150 countries around the world. The mission-driven firm is aiming to democratize access to transparent credit products for the millions who are shut out by the financial system — immigrants, international students, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and visa holders. The company will use the fresh capital to expand its workforce, accelerate new product development and add the latest features to existing products. Onbo, a credit-as-a-service offering that enables any business to build and offer a credit product without needing a bank sponsor, was launched by the company earlier this month. The tool funds user accounts and deducts payments while also updating reimbursements in real-time. An integrated loan management system offers built-in accounting tools but also seamlessly works with third-party accounting tools. “We’ve spent 5 years at Stilt getting state lending licenses, building our credit stack, and refining our risk models. Now we're opening this entire stack for others to build innovative credit products ... This is the quickest way we can think of to democratize loans and credit building across the board,” Mittal said in a  press release  earlier this month. ——————————