heloc
(6)
Button Finance wants you to keep your mortgage. And borrow again.
A cheap first mortgage can be worth keeping. Button Finance builds its business around the borrowing that comes next, using digital underwriting to turn home equity into cash.
Trovy puts your house in your wallet
A home can make you wealthy on paper and leave you borrowing at credit-card rates. Trovy connects those two worlds with a HELOC you can swipe - and a set of terms worth reading before you do.
Two Stanford Classmates Bet That Americans Drowning in Debt Would Rather Be Helped Than Hustled
Two Stanford classmates spent two decades building a debt company most people never heard of. Then they renamed it Achieve, wired it to AI, and bet 2 million struggling households on one idea: do the customer's math first.
LoanSnap
LoanSnap was a U.S. fintech that built what it called the world's first 'smart loan' technology - an AI engine that scanned a borrower's whole financial picture in seconds, not just their interest rate, to recommend home loans designed to cut overall debt and monthly costs. Founded in 2017 by serial entrepreneurs Karl Jacob and Allan Carroll, it raised roughly $100M from backers including Richard Branson's Virgin Group, Reid Hoffman, True Ventures, Baseline Ventures, and the Chainsmokers' Mantis VC. After a 2021 peak of nearly $500M in originations, rising rates and operational problems sent volume and headcount into steep decline, followed in 2023-2024 by lawsuits, fines, and an eviction from its headquarters.
Loan Factory
Loan Factory is a San Jose-based mortgage brokerage and fintech company that shops a single loan across 240+ wholesale lenders to find the lowest rate, then runs the whole process on MOSO, its in-house, AI-assisted mortgage platform. Founded in 2006 by Vietnamese immigrant Thuan Nguyen - twice named the #1 loan officer in the United States - it has grown into the country's second-largest mortgage broker, with more than 2,000 licensed loan officers across 48 states and over $16 billion in funded volume.
Aven
Aven is a San Francisco-based fintech that built the first credit card backed by home equity. It pairs a Visa with a HELOC so homeowners can borrow against their house at mortgage-like rates while earning 2% unlimited cash back. Founded in 2019 by ex-Facebook and Square engineers, Aven hit a $2.2B valuation in 2025 after a $110M Series E led by Khosla Ventures and is building what it calls a 'machine banking' platform for American homeowners.