Setpoint, a startup that has built software to help other companies close loan transactions faster, has raised $43 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
The increase comes just six months after Austin, Texas-based Setpoint clost a $5.5 million seed round and $150 million in securitization.
Serial entrepreneurs Ben Rubenstein, Stuart Wall and Michael Lam founded Set point in 2021 with the goal of “building next-generation infrastructure for all asset-backed lending”. Asset-based loans are loans backed by assets. If the loan is not repaid, the asset is collateral.
In other words, Setpoint aims to be the “Stripe for credit,” saying it’s built an operating system for principals that “makes loan transactions instant, automated, and error-free.” It does things like verify and store documents, automate interest calculations, and digitize assets such as homes.
“Where Stripe is next-generation payment infrastructure, Setpoint’s goal is to be the finance operating system that companies like SoFi and Opendoor will use to run their businesses,” Rubenstein told businessroundups.org. The end goal, he added, is to make credit more widely available and to make the underlying assets and loans more liquid.
Opendoor is already a Setpoint customer, along with Offerpad, Orchard, Backflip, Wander and “many other proptechs,” according to CEO and co-founder Wall.
As evidenced by its client base, Setpoint’s initial focus was on boosting real estate transactions, but it’s now expanding into asset-backed lending as a whole. The company itself also acts as a lender, provide capital to proptech/alternative transaction companies. By also providing these companies with software designed “to help them scale and grow,” Setpoint aims to reduce risk on the capital side.
To date, Setpoint has borrowed or guaranteed more than $2 billion in capital as a lender companies such as Homeward, Opendoor, Flyhomes and Houwzer. It claims to work with “virtually every funded Power Buyer and I-Buyer” and is now expanding into Single Family Rental (SFR) and other proptech models such as fractional and rent-to-own. The capital is used by its clients to invest in their activities, for example buying houses or restructuring loans.
The SaaS startup says its revenue grew 13x year-over-year in Q3 2022, but it’s important to note that it was probably a small base as it was only founded last year. Net dollar retention in the first 5 quarters was +224% quarter on quarter, meaning Setpoint’s customers more than doubled their spend with the company each quarter. according to Wall. He said that set point is on track to complete 25,000 home transactions this year and expects more than 100,000 transactions by 2023.
“Behind many of life’s most important transactions—buying or renting a home or starting a business—is a complex system of trust and credit. Every day, billions are transferred between lenders like Goldman Sachs and lending companies like Flyhomes,” Wall, who is Setpoint’s CEO, said in a statement. “These warehouse transactions are made possible by email, Excel, paper documents and software developed in the 1980s. In less than a year, Setpoint has made significant progress in solving this problem within proptech.”
Stonecroft, 75andSunny, Fifth Wall, 645 Ventures, NextView Ventures, LiveOak Venture Partners, Vesta Ventures and ATX Venture Partners participated in the company’s latest round of funding. Other lenders include SPencer Rascoff, founder and CEO of Zillow; Joe Lonsdale of 8VC, Jon Stein, founder of Betterment, NextView Ventures, Capital Factory and Wild Basin Investments.
Wall previously served as founder and CEO of Signpost, a CRM platform for small businesses that exited a private equity sale in 2019. President Rubenstein and CIO Lam were co-founders Opcity in 2015, a sales platform for real estate professionals that was acquired by realtor.com in 2018 for $210 million. Following the acquisition by realtor.com, Rubenstein and Lam remained as Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Operating Officer, respectively. Rubenstein also co-founded Yodle, an SMB digital marketing company that was acquired by Web.com in 2016 for $342 million.
Setpoint currently has 22 employees and is looking to expand its technical and operational teams.
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