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Athena Home Loans announced that it has broken its previous venture capital record after it raised $90m in Series D funding.
The home loan fintech was able to surpass the record it set in 2019 when it scored the largest ever Australian-led venture capital round that hit $70m.
The latest funding brings the total equity capital raised by Athena to $200m.
Square Peg led this latest funding round, with Athena's largest investors, including AirTree, Macquarie Bank, AustralianSuper, Hostplus, Sunsuper, Salesforce Ventures, and Apex Capital, also contributing to the fund.
Nathan Walsh, co-founder and CEO of Athena, said the success of the funding round proves the support of the investors to revolutionise the $1.7tn home loan market. Walsh said this commitment from investors will help Athena achieve its plans to disrupt the market.
"The consumer benefits of real innovation and competition in home loans dwarf other sectors of fintech. And so-called ‘challengers’ are often merely a thin veneer disguising the same legacy predatory business models," he said. "Enabled by our proprietary mortgage platform, Athena is using the power of modern tech and design to challenge industry convention and continually innovate."
The conclusion of this funding round came after Athena recently inked a funding deal with global alternative investment group Cerberus and its non-bank lender subsidiary Bluestone.
Athena is known for automatic rate match, which enables the group to apply rate changes across its new and existing customers. This means that existing borrowers do not pay the "loyalty tax" most lenders charge. Instead, they get the same lower rate when Athene trims its rate for new customers.
Recently, Athena rolled out AcceleRATES, a program that enables borrowers to drop their own rate as they pay down their home loans.
Michael Starkey, co-founder and COO of Athena, said the group was able to weather the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We doubled our home loan book in 2020, due to the exceptional credit quality delivered by our digital platform," he said.
"We are excited to continue to lead the digital expansion of home loans in Australia. We have the strongest backing of leading investors in the country, an extremely talented team and substantial consumer appetite for a lender that is on their side."
