Santander Group’s FinTech venture capital fund Santander InnoVentures is leading an expansion funding round for cloud-based digital lending platform Roostify.

Santander first invested in the company in February 2018 and this is its second investment.

Founded in 2012, Roostify’s digital lending platform connects customers and lenders to accelerate the home loan experience, eliminating paper and simplifying the process to reduce costs.

The company’s monthly loan volume has more than doubled over the last 12 months to nearly $20 billion a month as it supports global banks with digital transformation. To date, customers have shared that the platform has driven a reduction in banks’ mortgage lending process time by an average of 20 per cent.

The latest funding will support the build out of its public cloud-based platform, including enhanced decision-making and fulfilment capabilities, data and machine learning tools, and additional consumer lending products. It will also support the Roostify’s geographic expansion as it moves into the UK and other markets across Europe.

In line with its ‘invest and partner’ model, Santander InnoVentures is supporting Roostify’s expansion with an investment and global agreement, that also includes funding from existing investors JPMorgan Chase and Colchis Capital, among others.

The investment comes at an interesting time for the mortgage lending market, as borrower costs near rock bottom in many global markets, boosting home buying demand and spurring competition between lenders.

In the UK, mortgage rates have remained largely unchanged at near-historic lows, fuelling competition between lenders trying to win market share, thus requiring them to improve their user experiences and integrations into third party platforms as a way to differentiate and remain competitive.

Manuel Silva Martínez, partner and head of Investments at Santander InnoVentures - and new board member at the startup - said: “The European mortgage lending market is ripe for the type of machine learning tools that Roostify offers.”

Rajesh Bhat, co-founder and chief executive of Roostify, said: “The Roostify lending platform enables lenders to realise up to 300 per cent growth in loan applications and a significant reduction origination costs – the future is frictionless, everyone benefits when you optimise the lending process.”

Last week, Santander InnoVentures also led the Series B funding round in CrossLend, a Berlin-based pan-European digital debt marketplace.

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