Upstart Holdings
 | |
| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
Type of site | Crowd funding |
| Available in | English |
| Founded | April, 2012 |
| Headquarters | , |
| Founder(s) | Dave Girouard Anna Mongayt Paul Gu |
| Employees | 11 |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Current status | Active |
Upstart is a crowdfunding website for recent college graduates. Upstart was founded by Dave Girouard, a former VP of Apps for Google. The company connects recent college grads with investors (which they call "backers") who provide college grads loans to start pursuing their dreams. The college grads then pay back the loans based on a percentage of their income for either 5 or 10 years. If their income is less than $30,000 per year, they are not required to make any repayments, but the term of the loan is extended for up to 5 years.[1] Graduates create a profile about themselves and their goals, which backers are able to browse. Upstart uses a proprietary algorithm to determine the dollar amount they can raise per percent of their income. Backers can then back the graduates over a fund raising campaign. If the students raise at least $10,000 by the end of the campaign, they can choose to receive the funds, even if they do not hit their target. If not, then they don’t get their funds.[2]
Upstart raised a $1.75M seed round from First Round Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, NEA, Google Ventures, Crunchfund and Mark Cuban. They subsequently raised a series A round of $5.9M which included new investors Eric Schmidt, Marc Benioff, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, and Collaborative Fund[3] Jessica Jackley and Bob Kerrey serve as advisors to the company.
Upstart is a for-profit company which makes its money by taking a 3% cut of the money raised by students and charges backers a 0.5% annual management fee on funds invested. It was launched in April 2012 and its beta site went live in August 2012.[4]
References
- ^ Alison Griswold, “Upstart: Can Crowdfunding Your Education And Career Really Work?”, Forbes, 10 August 2012.
- ^ Sarah Mitroff, “Upstart Is Crowdfunding for Dreamers”, Wired, 8 August 2012.
- ^ "About Upstart". Upstart. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
- ^ Agence France-Presse, “New U.S. website lets 'crowd' fund college grad startups”, Mother Nature Network, 8 August 2012.