Lendbuzz co-founder Dan Raviv (left) and Amitay Kalma (company PR pic)
Israeli fintech startup Lendbuzz offers an AI based auto finance platform for people seeking a line of credit. Lendbuzz just completed a $60 million Series C funding round led by Wellington Management, joined by Goldman Sachs & Co and MUFG Innovation Partners. The company also jut qualified for a whopping line of credit for itself, getting $300 million in debt financing led by Goldman Sachs Bank USA.
Fintech is anything new having to do with using technology to improve the transfers of money, or payments. This includes just about everything like every time a person pays for something on line. And, of course, fintech also includes any and all digital banking transactions, such as small loans and lines of credit.
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Founded in 2015 by CTO Dan Raviv and, Lendbuzz uses Big Data analytics to “significantly” improve access to credit for international students and professionals living in the US. The Israeli founders explain that they decided to found the company when living in the U.S. themselves. There they saw how difficult it was to qualify for small loans or to obtain credit.
While everywhere you go in America companies may throw credit cards with lines of credit at you, this is because they hope to make a lot of money on the interest charged over late payments. But qualifying for a mortgage, a small business loan or a personal loan is a different story entirely. In the U.S. it is all about your credit rating which is determined by nameless people who you will never meet.
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So, says LendBuzz, the company is not interested merely in a person’s credit score, it focuses on their customers’ background information such as employment, educational, financial or personal history to assess their creditworthiness and grant the customer a loan.
Lendbuzz says that they offer their international customers access to car loans and car refinancing at “exceptionally attractive terms and rates regardless of credit history, credit score and lack of social security number.”
“We believe that anyone working, studying and living in the US is eligible for access to credit at fair rates!”
Lendbuzz (Facebook)
CEO Amitay Kalmar explained in a company blog post that, “in 2016, we decided to take on the challenge of providing fair access to credit for deserving borrowers. We focused on auto loans due to the importance cars play in our daily lives, and we initially focused on international students, just like we were when we first experienced the outdated credit system.”
Though the focus of Lendbuzz continues to be on auto loans, the company now services all types of borrowers across the U.S., from American citizens who are buying their first car to immigrants working and living in the U.S. “We believe in expanding fair access to credit for millions of deserving consumers, and we will continue to work tirelessly on behalf of our customers,” said Kalmar.
