Stilt
“Can a consumer immigrant lender turn its own state lending licences into embedded credit-as-a-service infrastructure for other fintechs?”
Stilt started in 2015 as a consumer lender to immigrants without US credit history — solving co-founder Rohit Mittal's own experience of arriving in the US and being unable to rent an apartment. It grew via YC W16, added FDIC-insured bank accounts in 2020, and stacked debt facilities from SVB and others. In 2022 it pivoted to B2B with Onbo — a credit-as-a-service API that piggybacks on Stilt's own state lending licenses so fintechs and neobanks can launch credit products without a bank sponsor. This effectively made Stilt an embedded-lending orchestration provider using its own licences rather than a downstream sponsor bank.