San Francisco-based blockchain firm Figure Technologies has filed with the SEC for a $103 million Series C funding, reported TechCrunch. The round was led by Morgan Creek Digital, included MUFG Innovation Partners and the valuation was $1.2 billion.
This follows rumors we covered a few months back that Figure was raising $100 million at a valuation of more than $1 billion and we estimate its cumulative equity funding at $233 million.
The startup initially focused on home equity lines of credit (HELOC) using blockchain technology. Additionally, it’s starting student loan refinancing and conventional mortgages which it plans to be fully functional by the end of the year. In April it advanced $59 million and was expecting the loans originated to reach $80 million for August. Cumulatively the amount advanced is $700 million.
The firm was co-founded by Mike Cagney, who is also the founder of another fintech, SoFi, known for refinancing student loans.
Figure has a high-profile list of advisors including former SEC chairman, Arthur Levitt, former FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair, former Digital Asset CEO Blythe Masters, Global Atlantic CIO Anup Agarwal and Andy Sandler, founder of Buckley Sandler.
The company developed its own blockchain platform for financial services dubbed as provenance.io, which was later spun off under Provenance Blockchain Inc which has raised finance separately. The goal was to make the platform available to other companies which was achieved when Caliber Home Loans signed on three months ago. There are apparently several other firms using the platform that have not been announced.
Provenance.io is unrelated to the older UK-based blockchain firm Provenance known for product traceability and transparency.
The Provenance blockchain is being used to originate loans, receive loan payments, to buy and sell loans in the secondary market, to finance loans and to securitize loans. Provenance aims to securitize a second batch of debt this year. A key goal is faster turnaround times, with loan approval within five minutes and fund transfer in five days.
The company is growing fast and has previously raised $130 million from RPM Ventures, partners at DST Global, Ribbit Capital, DCM, DCG, Nimble Ventures, Morgan Creek and others. In May, Figure secured a $1 billion uncommitted asset-based financing facility from Jefferies and WSFS Institutional Services, relating to the mortgages.
Earlier this year, the spun-off firm Provenance Blockchain completed a $20 million security token offering (STO) of its Hash token. Figure retained the majority. A few months down the line Japanese company Recruit, which owns Indeed, announced it had invested in the Provenance blockchain.
There could be more news this month as Provenance was planning an IPO for Hash this quarter.
Several details were added to this article since the initial publication.
