Polly, a software-as-service mortgage-technology firm that operates a loan-trading platform, has raised $37 million through a new funding round, its third since launching in 2019 — bringing the total raised from investors to $57 million.

The prior two Series A funding rounds undertaken in April 2019 and March 2021 raised a total of $20 million, according to the deal-tracking service Crunchbase. Venture capital firm Menlo Ventures led the latest Series B funding round, which also includes investments from title insurance company First American Financial, FinVC as well as participation from existing investors 8VC, Khosla Ventures and Fifth Wall.

Also participating in this latest funding round is Movement Mortgage, which describes itself as the sixth largest retail mortgage lender in the nation, funding some $30 billion in residential mortgages annually. It operates more than 650 branches nationwide and employs some 4,000 people.

San Francisco-based Polly is a fintech firm focused on fostering data-driven capital markets via its cloud-based technology products and services, which include a product and pricing engine, a loan-trading exchange, an analytics platform, and an integrated vendor platform for its partners. In a press release issued in March 2021, Polly said originators and investors have used its loan-trading platform, launched in late 2019, to buy and sell “over $16 billion of mortgage loans on the exchange.”

The company plans to use the $37 million raised from the latest funding round to advance technology innovation, invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, and to expand its client base.

“Since founding Polly, we’ve been laser focused on providing innovative software solutions to our customers and partners that will enable them to meet the high expectations of today’s consumers while increasing their profitability,” Adam Carmel, founder and CEO of Polly, said in a statement. “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.”

Polly’s press statement announcing the capital infusion also notes that the company is expanding rapidly. It has nearly tripled its customer count over the past year, including signing on “several of the country’s top 100 lenders.”

“The goal is that ultimately [Polly’s clients] are able to deliver a lower mortgage price to their consumers or to their customers while increasing their own profitability,” Carmel said in an interview with tech industry publication TechCrunch. “We want to help these lenders move away from spreadsheets and telephony and email as a transaction medium, and instead do everything in the cloud.”

As part of the latest investment round, Tyler Sosin, a partner at Menlo Ventures, will join Polly’s board of directors. 

The post Tech firm Polly bulks up to help modernize mortgage industry appeared first on HousingWire.

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