LendUp was an American online direct lender. It offered payday loans, installment loans, and credit cards to consumers with low credit scores using publicly available data to assess creditworthiness.[1][2] The company referred to its customers as "the emerging middle class."[3][4] LendUp also issued credit cards in partnership with Tom Steyer's Beneficial State Bank.[5][6]
LendUp was co-founded in 2011 by stepbrothers Sasha Orloff and Jake Rosenberg and incubated at Y Combinator. The company positioned itself as a "socially responsible lender" and claimed to provide access to financial services for "underbanked" Americans in addition to lower cost credit and credit-building opportunities.[7]
LendUp received $325 million in equity and debt financing from PayPal, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Alexis Ohanian, Y Combinator and QED Investors, among others.[8] In an article published shortly after the company's launch, Time Magazine wrote that LendUp "says it's not like other payday lenders. Yet the fees it charges — a little over $30 to borrow $200 for two weeks — are similar to what its competitors charge."[2]
In 2016, LendUp raised $150 million to develop a credit card product in January,[9] then paid $6.3 million in fines for deceptive practices [10] and widespread violations of payday and installment loan laws in September.[11][12][13]
In January 2019, Anu Shultes was appointed CEO.[14] A corporate restructuring allowed LendUp to focus on personal loans. In 2020, it was sued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for violating the Military Lending Act.[15][13][16][17]
Mission Lane asset sale
On December 17, 2018, LendUp entered into an asset sale agreement to sell its credit card business to a Utah limited liability company.[18] The transaction included LendUp Card Services, Inc. (LUCS), LendUp Card Holdings LLC (LUCH), and LendUp Technologies, Inc. (LUT), encompassing all assets related to the credit card business operations.[18] The credit card division had been operating within LendUp since 2015. This sale resulted in the creation of Mission Lane as a separate standalone entity.[19]
Following the closing of the asset sale, LendUp co-founder and then-CEO Sasha Orloff resigned from his position at LendUp and was engaged as an advisor to the purchaser.[18]
Orloff has subsequently been described as a "founder" of Mission Lane in various contexts, including by business partner Rippling in April 2025,[20] and in a July 2025 interview, when asked about "building two companies at the same time" prior to founding Puzzle in 2020, Orloff did not dispute the characterization.[21] The nature of his involvement with Mission Lane following the 2018 asset sale has not been publicly detailed.
In December 2021, as a result of deceptive marketing and fair lending violations, LendUp was fined $100,000 by The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Additionally, the company was required to stop issuing new loans and stop attempts to collect on certain loans. The action was taken to resolve a September 2021 lawsuit that alleged LendUp practiced illegal and deceptive marketing in violation of the 2016 finding.[22] It ceased loan operations in January 2022.[22] On May 8, 2024, the CFPB announced the distribution of nearly $40 million to affected consumers.[23]
As of March 1, 2023, LendUp last filed an annual report in 2020 and purportedly owes $390,332 in taxes.[24]
Ahead Financials
In December 2020, LendUp launched Ahead Financials, which went live the following May. Within a year of launching, Ahead informed customers via email that a "new app was coming".[citation needed]
Ahead was reportedly acquired by Kinly, although customer service hotlines claimed Ahead simply "rebranded its name to Kinly." According to social media, several users were unable to transfer funds or open new accounts. Kinly's sites failed to mention customer transitions and blocked transfers. Additionally, some accounts were closed without notice, blocking access to funds.[25]
In March 2015, co-founder Sasha Orloff was publicly identified as a financial backer of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an article analyzing Netanyahu's March 2015 address to the U.S. Congress, political economist James Petras described Orloff and co-founder Jake Rosenberg as part of a group of "Zionist lumpen bourgeoisie" who "lent to millions of borrowers at extortionate rates" and "used part of their ill-gotten gains" to support Israeli causes and Netanyahu specifically.[27] This identification occurred one year before LendUp's first Consumer Financial Protection Bureau violation in September 2016.[12]
CEO permanent ban
In December 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau permanently banned co-founder and CEO Sasha Orloff from the consumer lending industry through Consent Decree 2021-CFPB-0008.[28] The action resulted from LendUp's repeated violations of consumer protection laws and the terms of its 2016 consent order.
Violations and scope
The consent decree documented violations affecting more than 140,000 consumers.[22] The CFPB found that LendUp and Orloff:
Deceived consumers about credit reporting practices and loan availability
Failed to provide promised credit-building opportunities
Misrepresented loan terms and costs to borrowers
Violated the 2016 CFPB consent order on multiple occasions[22]
Section V of the consent decree permanently prohibits Orloff from:
Participating in offering, providing, or arranging for any consumer financial product
Serving as officer, director, or in any management role at any entity offering consumer financial products
Advertising, marketing, promoting, offering, or extending any consumer loan
Collecting on or attempting to collect on any consumer loan[29]
The permanent ban does not restrict involvement in financial technology or data processing businesses that do not directly provide consumer financial products.
Subsequent activities
Following the ban, Orloff founded Puzzle Financial in 2020, a financial software company that provides accounting and bookkeeping services to startups.[18] The company processes financial data from business customers but does not offer consumer lending products. According to SEC filings, Y Combinator, Altman Family LLC (Sam Altman's personal family investment vehicle), and Orloff were co-investors in Theorem Technology between 2014-2024, a consumer credit asset management firm that was acquired by Pagaya Technologies in October 2024.[18][30]
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