Elio Mortgage, a New York-based mortgage company building an AI-native origination platform, has raised $5.1 million in pre-seed funding as it emerges from stealth. 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 was founded by Oren Michaely, CEO, and Arad Lev Ari, COO. Michaely previously worked as a software engineer and applied scientist at Microsoft before serving as Director of AI at Motive Partners. Lev Ari previously worked in real estate investment banking at Deutsche Bank and private equity at KKR.
The company operates a licensed mortgage brokerage supported by an internally developed agentic platform. Its technology is designed to handle parts of the mortgage origination workflow, including pre-qualification, document processing and closing, while allowing loan officers to focus on borrower relationships, advice and judgment.
Elio also operates Elio Embedded, which enables registered investment advisors, real estate agents, home builders and single-family rental operators to offer mortgage services to their customers without building their own mortgage origination operations.
At the time of its launch, the company said it was licensed in 22 US states and working with 40 loan officers. Elio plans to use the new capital for product development, expansion of its licensed mortgage operations across the US and recruitment of additional loan officers.
