After raising $1 billion earlier in the year with what was believed to be a $4 billion valuation, SoFi is targeting its next major Funding Round . Having launched in 2011 and offering online student loans, SoFi expanded its operations to include mortgages earlier this year.
According to Mike Cagney, CEO and Co-Founder of SoFi, in an interview with Business Insider, the firm is easily surpassing its previous lending transactions in 2015, and after a transaction of $4 billion in loans this year, is targeting a $30 billion valuation for the future. The $4 billion figure is magnified by the fact that according to Cagney, SoFi had only registered $1 billion in loans from its 2011 launch through the end of 2014.
While mortgages remain a small factor of SoFi’s overall loans, accounting for approximately $50 million in monthly transactions, the company believes loans will total in multi-billion next year. In addition to loans, Cagney revealed that SoFi has plans for continuing to expand its financial services such as life insurance.
The aggressive plans are part of an overall belief by SoFi that they can disrupt traditional financial firms like brick and mortar banks through the offering of more efficient digital-based services. According to Cagney, these plans are putting SoFi on pace to secure its massive valuation forecast, as he stated to Business Insider, “We have a path that we're executing against, and it's around the idea that these are things, we think, [will] get us to a $30 billion valuation.”
Cross Product Marketplaces
SoFi is far from the only marketplace lender to create plans to enter new markets. Other online lenders such as Lending Club are also making widening available loans to markets across different segments such as home improvement, mortgages, student and personal loans.
In addition, after focusing on the small and medium-sized business (SMB) loan market, Kabbage launched a consumer loan brand called Karrot 2014, and is now expanding beyond just direct loans as they added white label partnership solutions this year. Elsewhere, Prosper Marketplace, a P2P lender focusing on the consumer loan market, acquired personal finance app BillGuard earlier this year, which is expected to lead them to begin to offer new types of services to customers.
With the $30 billion valuation goal though, SoFi is making a clear statement that they believe digital financial services has plenty of room to grow, and won’t only be limited to the lending market.
