SoFi Raises $500M, Valuation Remains $4.3B

Social Finance (SoFi), a personal finance company, has raised half a billion dollars in a funding round led by Qatar, according to a report by CNBC.

The company said it will use the capital to invest in growth and add some muscle to its $2.3 billion balance sheet. The company’s valuation will stay about the same as with the last funding round two years ago, which was led by Silver Lake.

The latest backer is a private equity and sovereign wealth fund based in Doha, Qatar. It has around $12 billion in assets under management. The fund has previously invested in various big-name startups like Flipkart, HelloFresh and Uber. Previous SoFi investors include SoftBank Capital and Peter Thiel.

The private capital space has attracted a lot of interest lately: Investments in the area grew to $4.4 billion in 2018, up from under $1 billion in 2013.

“Over the last year, we’ve worked aggressively to grow SoFi from a desktop lending business to a broad-based, mobile-first financial platform enabling members to borrow, save, spend, invest and protect their money,” said Anthony Noto, CEO of SoFi. Noto also said he doesn’t see going public as a priority, but that it might be something to consider in the future.

SoFi, which is based in San Francisco, has launched numerous new products this year. The company teamed up with Coinbase for a zero-fee branded cryptocurrency trading platform, and there are plans for a credit card by the end of the year. The company also introduced a product called SoFi Money, which is a cash account that has a 2.25 percent annual percentage yield.

The company began in 2011 and originally focused on student loan financing for millennials, but has since expanded into personal and mortgage loans. It also handles management services and mortgage refinances. The company says it has upwards of 700,000 members, as well as 7.5 million registered users.