Social Finance, Inc (SoFi) is an online personal finance company that provides student loan refinancing, mortgages and personal loans.

SoFi offers personal loans with some of the lowest interest rates in the market. The tough part is getting approved.

SoFi was founded in 2011 by Mike Cagney, Dan Macklin, James Finnigan, and Ian Brady, four students who met at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA with offices in 6 other locations across USA.

SoFi originally utilized an alumni-funded lending model that connected students and recent graduates with alumni and institutional investors via school specific student loan funds. Investors received a financial return and borrowers received rates lower than the federal government offered. The company sought to minimize defaults by focusing on low-risk students and graduates.

SoFi uses an underwriting model that examines free cash flow, professional history and education in addition to a history of responsible bill payment to evaluate its borrowers.

SoFi is backed by top tier investors including SoftBank, Qatar Investment Authority, Silver Lake Partners, Third Point Ventures, Baseline Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Wellington Management, & DCM Ventures and many others.

SoFi was valued at a whooping $4.3B, during it's latest "Private Equity Round" funding of a $500M from Qatar Investment Authority on May 29, 2019. SoFi has raised a total of $2.5B in funding to date.