Elio Mortgage, an AI-native mortgage company focused on redesigning how home loans are originated, has emerged from stealth with $5.1 million in pre-seed funding.
The round was led by Motive Partners and Social Leverage, with Jeff Horing, co-founder and managing director of Insight Partners, participating as an angel investor.
Elio plans to use the funding to continue product development, expand its licensed mortgage operations nationwide and recruit loan officers as it grows its AI-native brokerage model.
Elio Mortgage was founded by Oren Michaely and Arad Lev Ari.
Michaely previously worked in engineering at Microsoft and served as Director of AI at Motive Partners. Lev Ari has experience in real estate investing and investment banking, including roles at KKR and Deutsche Bank.
The company is developing an AI-native platform designed to transform mortgage origination from end to end. Rather than providing software for individual parts of the mortgage process, Elio operates a licensed mortgage business and builds its technology directly within that operation.
“Mortgage is one of the largest financial markets in the world, yet the way loans are originated has changed remarkably little,” said Oren Michaely, CEO and Co-Founder of Elio Mortgage. “The industry has spent years digitizing individual processes, but people are still responsible for stitching those processes together. AI gives us the opportunity to redesign the entire origination model, changing how work is divided between people and technology, how organizations are structured, the cost of originating a loan, and the borrower experience. We’re building Elio to show what a fundamentally better mortgage company can look like.”
“The next generation of financial services are being built around AI, with intelligence systems coordinating and executing work across the business rather than automating isolated tasks,” said Harsh Govil, Partner, Venture at Motive Partners. “In truly AI-native companies, the technology largely disappears into the operating model, while customers and employees experience a fundamentally faster and improved service. We believe Elio represents that shift in mortgage, an industry where we see enormous opportunity to redesign operations and economics.”
“We invest in founders who challenge entrenched industries with new business models, and Elio represents exactly that kind of opportunity,” said Matt Ober, Managing Director, Social Leverage. “By combining an AI-native operating model with an embedded distribution strategy, Elio enables financial advisors and other businesses with trusted customer relationships to make mortgage financing a seamless extension of the services they already provide. We look forward to supporting them as they redefine how borrowers access home financing.”
Engineers and loan officers work together inside the mortgage workflow, allowing the company to identify and redesign processes as they operate.
Mortgage technology has traditionally focused on improving individual parts of the loan origination process. This can leave loan officers and operations teams working across multiple systems and disconnected workflows.
Elio is taking a different approach by combining its mortgage operation with its proprietary AI platform.
The company aims to use AI to automate and improve parts of mortgage origination while allowing loan officers to focus more on customer relationships, advice and decision-making.
According to Elio, its platform is also designed to help loan officers serve more borrowers and grow their businesses.
Elio is also developing Elio Embedded, which allows businesses with existing customer relationships and mortgage demand to offer mortgage services without building their own mortgage operation.
The company plans to serve registered investment advisors (RIAs), real estate agents, home builders and institutional owners of single-family rental portfolios.
Through this model, Elio can operate as the embedded mortgage arm for these businesses while providing the technology and operational infrastructure required for mortgage origination.
The approach is designed to help businesses capture mortgage demand already coming through their customer relationships without taking on the full operational complexity of running a mortgage business.
With its $5.1 million pre-seed funding, Elio plans to continue developing its AI-native mortgage platform and expand its licensed mortgage operations across the U.S.
The company will also use the funding to recruit additional loan officers as it scales its brokerage and embedded mortgage models.
Elio is positioning its technology around a broader shift in mortgage operations, combining AI, mortgage expertise and a licensed operating model rather than selling standalone software to existing mortgage companies.
Elio Mortgage is an AI-native mortgage company rebuilding mortgage origination around its proprietary agentic platform. The company operates a licensed mortgage business and uses its technology to support loan officers, borrowers and businesses seeking to offer mortgage services through Elio Embedded.
