Arlington startup MotoRefi, whose platform aims to make refinancing car loans easier for consumers, has closed on an eight-figure round involving a blue-chip investor.
The company has raised about $45 million in new Series B funding, the lion’s share of which comes from Goldman Sachs, as we reported Thursday and the company confirmed in an announcement Friday. Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s Growth Equity team led the round, which included a new investor, IA Capital of New York, as well as existing investors Moderne Ventures, Accomplice, Link Ventures, Motley Fool Ventures and CMFG Ventures.
This marks the largest round for the 4-year-old startup to this point, signaling strong momentum in what it's described as a $1.2 trillion auto refinancing market.
It comes just four months after MotoRefi closed a $10 million funding round led by Moderne Ventures. That followed $9.4 million in February 2020 and $4.7 million in April 2019. The startup was first incubated in 2017 by local fintech venture firm QED Investors — which was founded in 2007 by Capital One Financial Corp. co-founder Nigel Morris and is staffed with several former Capital One executives.
Since its inception, MotoRefi has received backing from Gaingels and FireBolt Ventures, in addition to the investors who participated in this latest round. In all, MotoRefi's total venture haul amounts to $60 million since its founding.
Jade Mandel, Goldman Sachs Asset Management's vice president on its growth equity team, will join MotoRefi's board, its third woman to do so.
MotoRefi said in January that it saw rapid growth through the pandemic — ballooning its headcount last year to more than 150 employees as it refinanced a combined $250 million worth of auto loans last year. It also said at the time that it had increased revenue sixfold in 2020, declining to share specifics. As part of its announcement Friday, the company said it's seen seven times the growth in revenue, five times the growth in loan volume and 2.5 times the growth in headcount from the first quarter of 2020 to the same period this year.
The company, a DC Inno Fire award winner of 2020, said in March it will move its headquarters from Arlington to D.C., with a 22,000-square-foot lease locked in at 1717 Rhode Island Ave. NW slated to open later in 2021. That larger space was necessary, the company had said, to accommodate its growing workforce. That included beefing up its executive team, with hires that include former LiveSafe executive Dan Morrison as vice president of product; former Uber exec Aaron Fagan as senior director of analytics; and former Optoro exec Casey Fraser as chief of staff.
Moderne Ventures Partner Liza Benson had joined the company’s board as part of the fund’s January investment. And MotoRefi expected Moderne’s involvement, with its consumer finance experience, to benefit the business going forward, MotoRefi CEO Kevin Bennett said earlier this year.
“Their partnership will enable us to accelerate our already strong growth trajectory, invest more deeply in our tech platform, grow the team and reach a growing segment of this large market,” Bennett said in a statement in January.
Prior to MotoRefi, Bennett was an executive at a number of local startups. He served as co-founder and CEO of residential real estate transaction platform HomeZen, director of strategy and operations at LiveSafe, and in roles at Opower and Personal Inc. before taking up MotoRefi's reins.
This story has been updated to reflect the company's announcement of the deal closing.
