Upgrade

The six-year-old fintech offers personal loans, a checking account and a credit card (paying 1.5% to 3% cash back) that also functions like a personal loan: you can get a credit line ranging from $500 to $25,000, have a fixed deadline to pay it off and can make payments in equal monthly installments. In 2022, Upgrade launched a new card that lets customers toggle between paying for items as a debit or a credit purchase and to set rules–such as smaller purchases should always be processed as debit transactions. At the end of 2022, it had 2.2 million customers, up from 1.25 million at the end of 2021. Funding: $587 million from Coatue, DST, Union Square Ventures and others. Latest valuation: $6.3 billion. Bona fides: In 2022, it had $680 million in revenue and $80 million in net profit. The year prior, revenue was $410 million. Cofounders: CEO Renaud Laplanche, 52, founder and former CEO of online lender LendingClub; CFO Jeff Bogan, 43; head of investor group Adelina Grozdanova, 39; head of cards and loans Matt Wierman, 51; chief information officer Visar Nimani, 48.

upgrade.com

HQ: San Francisco, California, United States

5000

Finance

Company research

Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals

Updated Aug 16, 2026

Overview

Upgrade, Inc. is a privately held financial-technology company that provides responsible consumer credit, mobile banking, cards, personal loans, auto and home-improvement financing, credit-health tools, and buy-now-pay-later services. It is not a bank and partners with banks and financial institutions for loan origination and deposit services. Since inception, Upgrade reports serving more than 7.5 million customers and delivering over $42 billion in consumer credit.

Primary product

A consumer fintech platform centered on the Upgrade Card, personal loans, Rewards Checking, credit-health tools, and Flex Pay BNPL.

Founded

2016

Headquarters

275 Battery Street, Suite 2300, San Francisco, California 94104, United States

Team size

1,001–5,000

Work style

Flexible

Industry

Financial services

Sub-industry

Consumer fintech, digital banking, consumer lending and buy-now-pay-later

Offices

San Francisco, California — headquarters, service center, engineering center and regional offices

Phoenix, Arizona — operations center

Montreal, Quebec, Canada — development/technology center

Atlanta, Georgia — regional office

Irvine, California — regional office

Business model

B2C consumer lending

Digital banking and deposit accounts

Credit-card interchange and lending economics

B2B2C embedded finance and merchant financing

Travel and retail BNPL

Loan origination, servicing and institutional loan-sale/forward-flow arrangements

Funding

Stage

Late-stage private / pre-IPO

Total raised

$750M

Latest round

Series G Preferred equity · Oct 2025

Latest amount

$165M

Line of credit

Feb 2026 · Cross River

$100M

Series G Preferred

Oct 2025 · Neuberger / NB Alternatives Advisers

$165M

Series F

Nov 2021 · Coatue Management and DST Global

$280M

Series E

Aug 2021 · Koch Disruptive Technologies

$105M

Series D

Jun 2020 · Santander InnoVentures

$40M

Series C

Aug 2018 · CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund

$62M

Series B

Nov 2017

$20M

Series A

Apr 2017 · Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital

$60M

People & investors

Leadership

Renaud Laplanche

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Adelina Grozdanova

Co-founder and Head of Investor Group

Jeff Bogan

Co-founder and Chief Finance Officer

Visar Nimani

Co-founder and Chief Information Officer

Matt Wierman

Co-founder and Head of Cards and Loans

Paresh Gangodker

Chief Technology Officer

Thomas Curran

Chief Risk Officer and Chief Compliance Officer

Myles Reaz

Chief Credit Officer

Sudip Lahiri

Chief Accounting Officer

Peter Sterling

Board member; Head of Specialty Finance at Neuberger

Founders

Soul Htite

Co-founder

Investors

Work & culture

Upgrade describes its culture as inclusive, diverse, collaborative and mission-driven, with an emphasis on solving large consumer-finance problems, responsible financial products, customer education, and continuous learning. Public job listings indicate that at least some roles are remote within the United States, while the company also operates multiple offices and engineering centers.

Work style

Flexible

Visa sponsorship

Limited

Compensation

Public careers materials state that Upgrade offers competitive compensation and stock options. A public remote senior-backend-engineering listing advertised competitive salary, equity, paid insurance, unlimited vacation, learning support, parental leave and wellness benefits, but did not provide a salary range. Public Department of Labor/USCIS-derived datasets show historical H-1B and PERM activity, including software and analyst roles; sponsorship should be confirmed for each position and location.

Benefits

Competitive compensation and stock options

100% employer-paid medical, dental and vision coverage for team members

401(k)/retirement savings plan with 4% match, immediately vested

Unlimited paid time off for salaried employees

Paid parental leave

Health and wellness programs

Professional development and learning opportunities

Product & market

Pricing

Consumer products generally monetize through loan interest and, where applicable, origination fees; card interchange and lending economics; merchant/partner economics for embedded financing and Flex Pay; and institutional loan-sale or forward-flow arrangements. Upgrade Checking is marketed with no monthly maintenance fee. Exact APRs, fees and terms vary by product, borrower and lending partner.

Differentiators

—Integrated combination of installment credit, credit cards, mobile banking, credit monitoring and BNPL rather than a single-product offering
—Responsible-credit positioning focused on fixed-payment products and helping consumers improve financial health
—Large consumer-credit and underwriting platform with more than $42 billion in reported credit delivered
—Embedded travel and retail financing through Flex Pay, following the Uplift acquisition
—Experienced founding team with prior LendingClub operating and fintech experience
—Institutional funding, loan-purchase and forward-flow relationships that support balance-sheet and origination scale

Technology

Python

Java

Spring Boot

Ruby/Ruby on Rails signals

Node.js

React

Flask

PostgreSQL

Amazon RDS/AWS

Snowflake

Jenkins

Harness

Git

Linux

Prometheus

Grafana

Looker

Power BI

Selenium

Jest/TestNG/Postman/BrowserStack

Customers

More than 7.5 million consumers across Upgrade products

Personal-loan, credit-card, checking-account and credit-health users

More than 750 travel and retail brands using Flex Pay

Expedia Group brands including Expedia Cruises, Expedia.com, Travelocity, Orbitz and CheapTickets

WestJet

Uplift’s former network of more than 300 airlines, cruise lines and hotel partners

Competitors

SoFi

LendingClub

Upstart

Affirm

Klarna

Bread Financial

GreenSky

OneMain Financial

Chime

Scale & contact

Estimated revenue

Approximately $500 million–$1.2 billion annualized; CNBC reported annualized revenue above $1 billion in May 2025, while other commercial databases estimate lower figures. Treat as an estimate because Upgrade is private and does not publish audited revenue.

Estimated monthly visits

3.3M

Traffic estimate as of Jun 2026

Signals & risks

Acquisition

Jul 2023

Upgrade acquired travel BNPL provider Uplift for $100 million in cash and stock. The transaction expanded Upgrade into travel financing and added Uplift’s partner and customer base.

Source

Other

Dec 2024

Upgrade rebranded Uplift as Flex Pay. This is a product/brand integration milestone rather than a shutdown; Upgrade said the business had doubled annual revenue since the acquisition.

Source

Other

Oct 2025

Upgrade raised its first external equity financing since 2021 and stated that it was considering an IPO in roughly 12–18 months. The planned IPO creates execution, regulatory and market-timing risk, although the company reported strong growth and positive operating signals.

Source

Latest news

Fintech startup Upgrade valued at $7.3 billion in new funding round

CNBC · Oct 2025

Upgrade announced a $165 million Series G led by Neuberger Berman, reportedly valuing the company at $7.3 billion. CEO Renaud Laplanche said the company was considering an IPO and had expanded beyond its original lending business.

Fintech Upgrade raises $165 million, targets IPO in 12 to 18 months

Reuters · Oct 2025

Reuters reported that the Series G was Upgrade’s first external financing since 2021, valued the company at approximately $7.3 billion pre-money, and was intended partly to provide employee liquidity ahead of a potential IPO.

Rithm Capital Announces Forward Flow Agreement with Upgrade to Acquire $1 Billion in Home Improvement Loans

Business Wire · Aug 2025

Rithm Capital announced a one-year forward-flow agreement to acquire $1 billion of home-improvement loans originated and serviced by Upgrade, providing a significant institutional funding and distribution relationship.

Uplift Rebrands to Flex Pay, Reflecting Growth and Expanded Opportunities

Upgrade · Dec 2024

Upgrade rebranded its acquired Uplift travel BNPL business as Flex Pay and said more than 750 travel and retail brands used the product. Upgrade also reported that the unit had doubled annual revenue since the acquisition.

Upgrade Acquires Uplift for $100 Million in Cash and Stock

Upgrade · Jul 2023

Upgrade acquired Uplift, a travel-focused BNPL provider serving 3.3 million customers through more than 300 airline, cruise and hotel partners, for $100 million in cash and stock.

Jobs and careers at Upgrade

31 jobs at Upgrade

Senior Product Manager, Home Improvement

On-site

Product Management

San Francisco

1d ago

On-site

Full-time