Athena Home loans

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‘Australia’s best home loan’ startup Athena just raised $15 M to disrupt the home loan market

Athena Home loans

Fintech startup Athena just raised $15 million in their series A funding round, led by Macquarie Capital and Square Peg.

Dubbed as “Australia’s best home loan” on their website, Athena is a digital home loan platform that is aiming to disrupt the home loan market that the banks are dominating.

They plan to ‘make the home loan journey faster, cheaper & less stressful.’ Athena was founded by ex-NAB bankers Nathan Walsh and Michael Starkey and secured a $3m during their seed round last year.

The series A funding was back by existing investors like Macquarie Bank, Square Peg Capital, Apex Capital and Rice Warner.

Athena works by partnering with super funds to fund residential home hence bypassing the banks to offer loans at a lower interest rate for the customers. Because it will be cloud-based, the savings can be passed on to the borrowers and one can even refinance their loan in as low as 15 minutes by applying online and getting it approved that fast.

They are using technology to change the age-old system that the banks are using which can be ineffective with paper-based processes and brokers. With Athena being a digital company, they do not have any expensive branches or broker commissions. Hence savings can be passed down to their customers.

According to The Australian Financial Review, the founders said superannuation funds already had large investments in mortgages throughout the country, but these were “almost exclusively” through the banks.

And anyone that is a home buyer would know the process and the anxiety that comes with it.

Athena will launch their beta next month and the full launch will in 2019. According to The Australian Financial Review, there is a waitlist of 1000 people before any public marketing and awareness campaigns.

There is no news which superannuation funds will be on board or what interest rates will be offered, but they revealed to The Australian Financial Review that they had $500 million of funding capacity at this point.

And according to Smart Company, Athena is already looking ahead to its next round of fundraising, which is likely to happen within the first half of next year.

With investors pouring in millions there is a clear sign that this is a change that people are interested to see.

They told both Business Insider and The Australian Financial Review that Athena would ‘save some borrowers currently with the big four banks up to $100,000 over the life of a loan.’ That pretty exciting isn’t it.

This definitely seems like a win-win for everyone but the banks, so we are definitely excited about their beta launch next month. You can join the waitlist on their website to get the first-hand experience.

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‘Australia’s best home loan’ startup Athena just raised $15 M to disrupt the home loan market
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