Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
The online lender SoFi (Social Finance Inc.) is pitching a campaign seeking funding of $500 000 in equity to finance its market growth and international expansion plans, reports The Wall Street Journal.
The media quotes own sources and a presentation it reviewed and claims the funding round is just a few weeks from completion. Neither the lead investor, nor the privately owned marketplace lender, however, confirmed the exact sum sought by SoFi. According to The Wall Street Journal, however, if the deal is closed, it would be one of the largest US fintech deals for the year.
As per the same presentation, SoFi expects to be profitable this year. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, are expected to be $81.3 million in 2016 and $262.5 million in 2017, compared with a loss of $2.8 million in 2015, according to the presentation.
The company was established in 2011 and so far has garnered equity funding worth $1.38 billion in six rounds from 19 investors, shows CrunchBase data.
The largest one was a little over $1 billion, last September, from the Japanese internet giant SoftBank Group and hedge fund Third Point LLC. This investment valued SoFi at around $4 billion, so seeking another half a billion in equity funding is quite plausible.
According to its own estimates, SoFi has lent around $11 billion. Its main target are young professionals with promising careers and perfect credit history, or “Henrys” – “high earners not rich yet”, as dubbed by the lender.
Now, The Wall Street Journal claims, SoFi is considering taking its student loan business to Europe and expanding its client base with prime borrowers with not perfect, but good enough credit history.