MPOWER Financing, a global educational loans provider, recently announced it has raised $9 million in fresh funding to increase educational access for international and DACA students.
The Washington-based fintech company secures the fresh capital from several investors including Breega Capital, Potencia Ventures, AI8, Cometa, Zephyr-Peacock, 1776, Fresco Capital, 1994 LLC, and Goal Structured Solutions.
Founded by Manu Smadja and Michael Davis in 2014, MPOWER Financing is a social benefit corporation with a mission to make socioeconomic mobility borderless and reduce the financial barriers to international education. It helps students build their credit histories and provides them with personal finance education and career support to help prepare for life after school.
MPOWER Financing claimed itself to be the only student lender in the world that leverages both overseas and domestic credit data, as well as future earning potential. The fintech company makes its loan decisions based on students’ potential and not family’s income or assets, and offers financing to international students without requiring a co-signer, collateral, or US credit history. MPOWER claimed to have processed more than $2 billion in loan applications on its platform since its founding in 2014. It currently works with over 350 top universities and colleges across the US and Canada to provide education loans to students from over 200 countries.
Speaking about the company and the forces that make its work more relevant than ever before, Manu Smadja, Co-founder and CEO, MPOWER Financing, said in a statement,
“Two macro forces are making MPOWER’s work more relevant today than ever before. For one, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for tight international cooperation and knowledge-sharing. International students are vital bridges between countries and their minds carry the future solutions to today’s global challenges.”
“Secondly, universities across North America are increasingly combining online education with the traditional on-campus experiences. These hybrid models have the potential to reduce overall education costs, in turn making university accessible to a greater number of students worldwide. Given international students are essential to universities’ financial health, and many more students would come if tuition was more accessible, this is a huge opportunity. I’m very grateful for investors’ support. MPOWER is honoured to play a small part in enabling international education at such a critical time in history.”
The company said the new capital will fuel its continued growth and expansion into new value-added products and services for high-skilled immigrants in North America, including an international student loan refinancing solution.
Meanwhile, according to Crunchbase, MPOWER Financing has raised a total of $220.5 million funding to date, including $10 million in 2018 and $6 million two years prior. The company also received a $100 million credit facility in 2019 from Community Investment Management.
