“Can an outcomes-based education lender become the connective tissue between employers, schools, and talent by embedding education financing into HR and workforce platforms?”
Founded as Stride Funding circa 2019-2020, the company initially disrupted student lending through Income Sharing Agreements (ISAs), using proprietary ML models to underwrite students based on future earnings potential rather than credit history. The company evolved from direct ISA issuance to a program-manager model, enabling educational institutions to fund ISAs using their own capital. By 2025, the company rebranded to Clasp, shifting its go-to-market toward employers seeking to attract and retain talent through education financing benefits, effectively repositioning from a pure student lender to an HR-tech-adjacent fintech platform tackling student debt and workforce development simultaneously.
Stride Funding discloses FinWise Bank (sponsor bank) as its banking provider, with FinWise Bank as its sponsor bank, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
Stride Funding does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through FinWise Bank.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 3 layers in Stride Funding's stack: Banking / BaaS (FinWise Bank (sponsor bank)); Lending (Income Sharing Agreements (ISA), Income Share Loans (ISL) and Non-cosigner student loans); Sponsor bank (FinWise Bank).
Stride Funding is founded in 2019 and headquartered in Boston, MA.
Stride Funding has raised $12M+ in total (latest round: Series A, December 2021).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Stride Funding and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.