The story
2011–2013: Founding and early years
SoFi was founded by Mike Cagney, Dan Macklin, James Finnigan, and Ian Brady, four graduate students who met at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in the Fall of 2011. The firm began with a pilot program offering low-interest student loans to Stanford University students, for which 40 alumni loaned an average of roughly $20,000 to each of about 100 students.
In September 2012, SoFi raised $77.2 million, led by Baseline Ventures, with participation from DCM and Renren. Additional investors included Ron Suber.
On October 2, 2013, SoFi announced that it had raised $500 million in debt and equity to fund and refinance student loans. This total funding amount came from $90 million in equity, $151 million in debt, and $200 million in bank participations, with the remaining capital from alumni and community investors. The $151 million in debt includes a $60 million line of credit from Morgan Stanley, and a $41 million line of credit from U.S. Bancorp.
As of September 2013, SoFi had funded $200 million in loans to 2500 borrowers at the company's 100 eligible schools.
In November 2013, SoFi announced a deal with Barclays and Morgan Stanley to create a bond backed by peer-to-peer student loans, which would create the first securitization of these loans to receive a credit rating.
2014–2018: Expansion, challenges, FTC charges
In April 2014, SoFi raised $80 million in a Series C round led by Discovery Capital Management with participation from Peter Thiel, Wicklow Capital, and existing investors. Money was raised to expand the footprint of the company's student loan refinancing business and to extend into new products like mortgages and personal loans.
In February 2015, the company announced a $200 million funding round led by Third Point Management. That same month, the company officially began offering personal loans. By March 2015, the company was offering mortgages in more than 20 states, up from its initial launch that included under ten states in October 2014. By next month, the company had funded more than $2 billion in loans, including student loan refinancing, mortgages, personal loans, and MBA loans. To celebrate its $2 billion milestone, SoFi announced a contest, #2BillionTogether, to pay off one of its members student loans. In September 2015, former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt was added as an advisor. The firm also raised a $1 billion round of investment from SoftBank and said it had funded $4 billion in loans.
In May 2016, SoFi became the first startup online lender to receive a triple-A rating from Moody's. In September 2016, SoFi launched SoFi at Work, an employee benefit program to reduce student debt and build financial wellness, and announced it has more than 600 corporate partners. As of October 2016, SoFi funded more than $12 billion in total loan volume and had 175,000 members. In February 2017, it was announced that SoFi raised an additional $500 million from an investor group led by Silver Lake, and also including SoftBank, to help support global expansion. In May 2017, Reuters reported that SoFi had launched a new online wealth management service, and referenced the company as "one of the largest online lenders" in the U.S.
Read the full text
CEO sexual harassment claims
On September 11, 2017, CEO Mike Cagney announced he would resign by the end of year due to allegations of sexual harassment and skirting risk and compliance controls. Announced January 23, 2018, Anthony Noto resigned from his position as COO of Twitter, to become the CEO of SoFi. In April 2018, SoFi announced that Michelle Gill, who previously worked at TPG and Goldman Sachs, would join the company as Chief Financial Officer.
False claims and FTC charges
In October 2018, SoFi settled Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges, agreeing to stop making false claims about savings from student loan refinancing. The FTC alleged that SoFi had been making such false claims since April 2016. In February 2019, the FTC announced its approval of the final consent order under which SoFi is prohibited from misrepresenting to consumers how much money consumers will save or have saved using its products and from making any claims about any such savings unless the claims are backed up with reliable evidence. The order expires on February 22, 2039, or 20 years from the Commission's most recent date of filing a complaint in federal court reporting any misconduct that occurs later.
2019–2023: Going public, national banking license
In May 2019, SoFi closed $500 million within one funding round led by Qatar Investment Authority. In September 2019, SoFi signed a 20-year deal with the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League (NFL) for the naming rights to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. The deal, which is worth $30 million annually, is a record for any naming rights for a sports venue. In April 2020, SoFi acquired Salt Lake City-based financial services API and payments platform "Galileo" for $1.2 billion in stock and cash, and Hong Kong–based investment app "8 Securities". SoFi went public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) backed by Chamath Palihapitiya raising up to $2.4 billion at a $9 billion valuation. It began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SOFI on June 1, 2021.
In January 2022, SoFi received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national bank charter. The company was the first full-service financial-technology startup to receive a U.S. banking license. In February 2022, SoFi purchased Golden Pacific Bancorp, owner of Sacramento, California based Golden Pacific Bank, for $22.3 million. This allowed SoFi to hold loans for investment as opposed to selling them to outside investors, and allowed it to obtain the bank charter from the OCC. In March, SoFi acquired Technisys, a cloud-based banking system, for $1.1 billion.
In 2023, SoFi was named as one of the World's Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company in March and one of the World's Top Fintech Companies by CNBC in August. In January, the company was quoted to claim nearly 6% market share in the U.S. personal loans business. Later, by March, it had reached over $10B in total deposits. The same month, SoFi sued the Biden administration to block the pause on student loan repayment, saying it was hurting its business. SoFi dropped the lawsuit three months later, after a debt ceiling deal had been signed into law which provided a clear timeline for the resumption of student loan repayments. In April 2023, the company announced it had acquired Wyndham Capital Mortgage in an all-cash deal. According to American Banker in July 2023, SoFi had an estimated 60% share in the U.S. student loan refinancing market. By December 2023, the company reportedly had a 9.5% market share in "unsecured lending within a specific credit box" and a 0.1% share in the home loan market in the U.S.
2024–2025: Growth, diversification
In April 2024, a CNN study recognized SoFi as the "best student loan refinance lender". The study highlighted SoFi's competitive rates, flexible terms, and various perks. However, it also noted areas for improvement, specifically in disclosing the minimum credit score requirement and offering a cosigner release option for refinance loans. During the same month, another study cited SoFi's auto repair loans as the "best for customer benefits," while also noting some downsides, including a high credit score requirement, a minimum loan amount of over $5,000, lack of disclosure on the minimum income requirement, and limited nationwide availability.
In May 2024, SoFi was fined $1,100,000 for creating a cash management brokerage account system for which they failed to set up proper safeguards to prevent withdrawals made using stolen or fake identities. Around 800 of these accounts transferred some $8.6 million from other customers' accounts. That same month, CNN cited SoFi as the "best online personal loan" provider. The company was said to offer "competitive rates" and "free access to professional financial advisors who do not sell products".
In August 2024, both CBS News and USA Today ranked SoFi as the "best overall" provider of personal loans. Separately, SoFi's personal loans were cited as the "best for long repayment terms" and were noted for offering repayment periods up to 84 months and loan amounts up to $100,000. The personal loans were also recognized as the "best for refinancing high-interest debt".
In October 2024, SoFi's Form 8-K for July–September 2024, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, stated that the number of SoFi customers was nearly 9.4 million, and that the company's "technology platform enabled accounts" numbered 160 million. For the year ended December 31, 2024, the company announced the figures of $2.67 billion in revenue and $498.67 million in net income, and said that it had nearly 5,000 employees, $36.25 billion in total assets and $6.53 billion in total equity. It also stated that its technology platform enabled accounts and total members (customers) reached 168 million and exceeded 10.1 million, respectively.
In April 2025, SoFi stated that 41% of its annualized revenues were fee-based, including the fees from the company’s loan platform business, interchange services, loan referrals, as well as fees earned from its insurance business and small and medium business offerings. SoFi also reported as having nearly 11.7 million customers and 160 million technology platform enabled accounts, and claimed to be the only facilitator of digital person-to-person payments using phone numbers or email addresses. In June 2025, the company announced a reintroduction of its cryptocurrency and blockchain-related offerings, which it originally offered until December 2023, in response to the 2025 regulation changes under the GENIUS Act. In October 2025, SoFi announced the introduction of a new product called Cash Coach — an AI-powered system designed to assist consumers in optimizing the interest earned in deposit accounts and minimizing the interest expense on credit cards. The company also reported an increased customer count of 12.6 million by this time.
In November 2025, SoFi became the first nationally chartered consumer bank in the U.S. to allow members to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies directly within its banking app. In December 2025, the company launched a stablecoin, called SoFiUSD, and became the first U.S. national bank to launch a stablecoin on the public blockchain. For the year ending on December 31, 2025, SoFi reported $3.61 billion in revenue, $481 million in net income, $50.66 billion in total assets and $10.49 billion in total equity. The member accounts and technology platform enabled accounts were 13.7 million and 128 million, respectively. The company also said that its international payments product, SoFi Pay, was active in more than 30 countries, including parts of Europe, Brazil, India, Mexico and the Philippines.
2026–present: Acquisitions, Business banking
In March 2026, SoFi and Mastercard announced a partnership to allow SoFiUSD as a settlement option in Mastercard’s worldwide payment network. The integration would allow Mastercard customers to transfer funds quickly in certain situations, such as cross-border remittances and business-to-business money transfers. In April 2026, SoFi announced the debut of its Big Business Banking tool, designed to let businesses manage fiat and cryptocurrency banking, hold deposits, move funds and settle transactions on the company's banking platform. In May 2026, the company announced it was rolling out its stablecoin product to all of its retail banking customers, which numbered 14.7 million by this time. That same month, SoFi announced the acquisitions of PrimaryBid, a U.K. based fintech company that enabled retail investors to participate in public market offerings by aggregating orders into a single block, and Peach Finance, a U.S.-based startup specializing in loan servicing software.
In June 2026, SoFi began offering small-business loans between $2,500 and $250,000. It said these loans did not require origination fees and did not charge prepayment penalties. In the same month, the company also acquired Composer, a Canada-based startup which allowed retail investors create and execute complex trading strategies. In July 2026, SoFi reported having 15.8 million retail customers and 135 million technology Platform-enabled accounts.
From Wikipedia’s article on SoFi, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7