I’m excited to announce M13 is leading Milo's $17 million Series A investment alongside QED Investors and a handful of great angel investors. Milo is a financial services platform that reimagines how global and crypto consumers can buy U.S. real estate.
Milo's first product is the foreign national mortgage, which targets foreign buyers of U.S. real estate who simply can’t get mortgages without a Social Security number. This is a severely underserved $1 trillion market with only $30 billion financed annually. Milo has originated nearly $100 million of loans with zero defaults and zero 30-day late payments. We believe this business will compound for a very long time.
Milo's second product—which has enormous potential and is creating a new market—is the world's first 30-year mortgage that is fully collateralized by crypto. People can hold on to their crypto, forgoing the need to sell it for a traditional down payment and even allowing it to appreciate while leveraging it to buy real estate. At launch, Milo will only accept BTC but over time consumers can use other digital assets as collateral (ETH, stablecoins… NFTs one day) as well as new product lines (refinancings or HELOCs).
It’s rare you see such strong initial signals of demand; since the company announced the product in January, 7,500 people have joined the waitlist and the first crypto mortgage will be originated this month. Milo has also received coverage from The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, VICE, Cheddar TV, Bitcoin Insider, NASDAQ, Bitcoin Magazine, and Markets Insider.
At the most macro level, our thesis is predicated on a few simple principles:
- Crypto as an asset class will continue to grow long term well beyond the $2 trillion today—our predictions for the road ahead for crypto and the consumer imagined over $100 trillion one day
- U.S. real estate will continue to be desirable not only by U.S. residents but global buyers
- The $120 billion of non-qualified mortgages will continue to rise as a desirable asset to purchase for investors
Founder and CEO Josip Rupena has tremendous founder-market fit; his deep experience in international wealth management and capital markets on Wall Street, as well as his long-standing belief in crypto, makes him uniquely qualified to start this business. The proprietary credit models Milo has built for the foreign national product will only get better and similar models will be applied on the crypto side. Josip, who was born and raised in Miami, has set up a great office in the vibrant Wynwood neighborhood. We hope and expect this company will be a leader of the emerging Miami tech scene.
This deal was also a good reminder for me that there is always a role for serendipity—I didn’t meet Josip through an existing investor or through other traditional means but rather because I attended an event in Miami in early December hosted by Mayor Francis X. Suarez and my friend Saif Ishoof. Thank you, Saif, for nudging me to fly down and attend.
Welcome Josip and the whole Milo team to the M13 family!
I’m excited to announce M13 is leading Milo's $17 million Series A investment alongside QED Investors and a handful of great angel investors. Milo is a financial services platform that reimagines how global and crypto consumers can buy U.S. real estate.
Milo's first product is the foreign national mortgage, which targets foreign buyers of U.S. real estate who simply can’t get mortgages without a Social Security number. This is a severely underserved $1 trillion market with only $30 billion financed annually. Milo has originated nearly $100 million of loans with zero defaults and zero 30-day late payments. We believe this business will compound for a very long time.
Milo's second product—which has enormous potential and is creating a new market—is the world's first 30-year mortgage that is fully collateralized by crypto. People can hold on to their crypto, forgoing the need to sell it for a traditional down payment and even allowing it to appreciate while leveraging it to buy real estate. At launch, Milo will only accept BTC but over time consumers can use other digital assets as collateral (ETH, stablecoins… NFTs one day) as well as new product lines (refinancings or HELOCs).
It’s rare you see such strong initial signals of demand; since the company announced the product in January, 7,500 people have joined the waitlist and the first crypto mortgage will be originated this month. Milo has also received coverage from The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, VICE, Cheddar TV, Bitcoin Insider, NASDAQ, Bitcoin Magazine, and Markets Insider.
At the most macro level, our thesis is predicated on a few simple principles:
- Crypto as an asset class will continue to grow long term well beyond the $2 trillion today—our predictions for the road ahead for crypto and the consumer imagined over $100 trillion one day
- U.S. real estate will continue to be desirable not only by U.S. residents but global buyers
- The $120 billion of non-qualified mortgages will continue to rise as a desirable asset to purchase for investors
Founder and CEO Josip Rupena has tremendous founder-market fit; his deep experience in international wealth management and capital markets on Wall Street, as well as his long-standing belief in crypto, makes him uniquely qualified to start this business. The proprietary credit models Milo has built for the foreign national product will only get better and similar models will be applied on the crypto side. Josip, who was born and raised in Miami, has set up a great office in the vibrant Wynwood neighborhood. We hope and expect this company will be a leader of the emerging Miami tech scene.
This deal was also a good reminder for me that there is always a role for serendipity—I didn’t meet Josip through an existing investor or through other traditional means but rather because I attended an event in Miami in early December hosted by Mayor Francis X. Suarez and my friend Saif Ishoof. Thank you, Saif, for nudging me to fly down and attend.
Welcome Josip and the whole Milo team to the M13 family!
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The views expressed here are those of the individual M13 personnel quoted and are not the views of M13 Holdings Company, LLC (“M13”) or its affiliates. This content is for general informational purposes only and does not and is not intended to constitute legal, business, investment, tax or other advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters and should not act or refrain from acting on the basis of this content. This content is not directed to any investors or potential investors, is not an offer or solicitation and may not be used or relied upon in connection with any offer or solicitation with respect to any current or future M13 investment partnership. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Unless otherwise noted, this content is intended to be current only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in funds managed by M13, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by M13 is available at m13.co/portfolio.