Sindeo, an online mortgage marketplace that arms consumers with insights into costs and fees to help them plan, qualify and shop for a mortgage with multiple lenders, has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round that the startup will use to fuel its expansion out of California.
The startup, which says it can close loans for customers in as few as 15 days, is out to create an “end-to-end” experience for borrowers by using technology to connect borrowers with lenders, streamline the mortgage process and provide guidance from full-service “mortgage advisers” who are paid based partly on customer satisfaction.
Sindeo is a mortgage originator, submitting loan applications to the lenders that actually fund the loan, with lenders paying Sindeo up to 1.25 percent of the value of mortgages they approve.
“Sindeo is one of the most promising players in the financial technology space because it has amassed a highly talented team to propel the growth and innovation of its cutting-edge mortgage marketplace,” said James Liu, co-founder and chief operating officer of Renren, a Chinese social networking website that led Sindeo’s latest funding round.
Sindeo’s boasts a management team with substantial experience in the real estate, financial and technology services, and includes three Trulia vets.
The latest raise brings Sindeo’s total funding to date to $6.5 million, and adds two new members to the company’s board of directors — Liu and Arkadi Kuhlmann, founder and CEO of ZenBanx, who’s also an investor.
Sindeo currently covers California, but plans to set up shop in other Western states in the coming months and carve out a foothold on the East Coast by the second half of the year, said CEO Nick Stamos.
The company will also roll out a platform in April that will allow consumers to complete every step of the mortgage application process online, he said. That platform will rely on partnerships that will allow Sindeo to pull information for customers from their bank and investment accounts.
Sindeo also anticipates building out a portal that real estate agents could use to track the status of a client’s loan application, and potentially connecting real estate agents with prospective buyers, according to Stamos.
Unlike many other online mortgage services, Sindeo does not generate leads for lenders, Stamos said.
It shepherds customers through the entire borrowing experience online, from learning the basics about mortgages to actually closing on a loan.
Another differentiator: Sindeo’s mortgage advisers are paid a salary, a flat fee for every loan they close, and quarterly customer satisfaction bonuses equal to up to 10 percent of their annual salary — a compensation model that’s supposed to align the interests of Sindeo’s mortgage advisers with those of its customers.
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