Polly raises $37M to modernize secondary mortgage markets

Polly, a San Francisco-based startup that aims to modernize the process of buying and selling mortgages, has raised $37 million in a Series B funding round led by Menlo Ventures, a backer of HomeLight and Qualia.

Founded in 2019 by Ethos Lending veteran Adam Carmel, Polly has raised more than $50 million to date from investors who share the company’s vision of building a data-driven capital markets ecosystem that streamlines processes and automates workflows for mortgage lenders and investors.

Tyler Sosin

Menlo Ventures partner Tyler Sosin, who is taking a seat on Polly’s board of directors, said in a statement that Carmel “has unique domain expertise as a former mortgage operator and has a compelling vision for how modern cloud software can improve this industry. I’ve known Adam for a long time and feel he is, perhaps, the only person who can build this business.”

Polly offers a product and pricing engine that distributes mortgage pricing across channels, a loan trading exchange that automates many of the steps required to sell and distribute loans, an analytics platform that provides insights powered by market and internal data, and a partner platform that facilitates integrations with preferred partners.

The company said it will use the latest influx of funds to expand its product and engineering teams and “accelerate technology innovation, invest in AI and machine learning capabilities and grow its ecosystem of partners to continue reinventing the mortgage capital markets.”

Polly claims to have nearly tripled its customer count over the past year and signed “several of the country’s top 100 lenders.” Clients identified on the company’s website include Geneva Capital LLC, MLD Mortgage Inc. (which does business as The Money Store) and wholesale mortgage lender ResiCentral LLC.

Adam Carmel

“We’ve built a world-class platform that is unlike anything in the market, and this new round of financing will help Polly better meet the needs of our customers, improving their workflows and execution through automation,” Carmel said in a statement. “Our priority has been — and always will be — to constantly innovate for our customers and partners and obsess over their success.”

In addition to Menlo Ventures, new investors in the Series B round include Movement Mortgage, First American Financial and FinVC. Existing investors 8VC, Khosla Ventures and Fifth Wall also participated.

The nation’s second-largest title insurer, First American, has invested in 16 venture-funded companies including Lev, Offerpad, Orchard, Pacaso, Ribbon, Side Inc. and Sundae.

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Email Matt Carter