Crypto mortgage lender Milo secures $17M financing to expand operations, enabling crypto holders to buy real estate
In its drive to provide crypto owners with the ability to invest their digital assets in real estate, fintech lender Milo announced today that it has secured a $17 million Series A financing round to further build its business, led by venture capital firm M13 with additional financing from QED Investors and MetaProp.
Milo said it will use the proceeds of Series A to continue developing its products, the technology behind them, and more than to double its staff by the end of the year. Currently, Milo has a staff of 40 people in the US, Canada, Colombia and Argentina, according to CEO Josip Rupena in an interview with ZDNet.
Milo has provided millions of dollars in US home loans to foreign and digital asset holders for the past three years. In January, the Miami-based fintech introduced the first 30-year crypto mortgage, providing the opportunity for crypto holders to use their digital assets to invest in real estate. Milo's first product was a mortgage solution geared toward foreign nationals that, over the past year, has grown 250% and has processed more than $500 million in applications from more than 90 countries. According to the company, global consumers' financial needs have constantly been evolving over the past few years, and so too are financial solutions to help them reach their financial goals. Rupena and his team believe that real estate is an important part of financial wellness. However, many global crypto holders have been denied the opportunity to invest their digital assets in real estate.
Rupena sees Milo as providing the means for crypto holders -- many of them young investors in their 20s and 30s, who gained their digital wealth by being early adopters of such cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether -- to invest in the more traditional investment of real estate. "I looked at individuals that had amassed crypto wealth and felt that at some point they were going to want to transact in the real world by purchasing real estate and buying other real-world assets," Rupena said. "Given our experience already doing mortgages and working with international clients, we felt we could do the same for people that have crypto wealth… so we came out with our latest crypto mortgage product. So far, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive," he added.
Rupena and his team see the future potential of crypto mortgages because people are choosing to invest differently using their crypto assets. "We have a fundamental view that over the next three, five, seven, 10 years, more people will keep and amass their wealth in crypto. That's why we're pushing forward with this product. There's an opportunity for us to really help a lot of individuals -- whether they're international or US -- in the crypto mortgage space," Rupena told ZDNet.