Upstart Research

In my recent research on Upstart, I came across some resources that others may find value in.

  1. No surprise - Customer concentration came up several times as the biggest risk during the MF Live and Unrivaled Investing discussions - with over 80% of revenue coming from Credit Karma (Intuit) and Cross River bank. Unrivaled also mentioned Agency risk, the fact that Upstart buys back many of the loans and then sales them to Institutional investors.

  2. MF Live - Brian F gave it a 65/100 on his Checklist and Brian S gave it a 7/12 on his anti-fragile framework, again customer concentration (both revenue and marketing risk) was the biggest ding.

  3. Auto Lending expands the TAM from $92B to $626B - Matt Frankel discussed the awful nature of the sub-prime lending environment in Auto loans and why this is a great opportunity for Upstart to come in and take market share.

  4. Some Earnings Call Notes:

“Our optimism for the future comes from two facts. First, we continue to have a lengthy backlog of projects that will improve our funnel throughput and lead to more growth in the future. And second, we don’t see competitors on the same AI centric journey that Upstart is on.”

“(on Auto Lending) - we believe it has at least as much mispricing and inefficiency, with millions of consumers paying far more than they should to finance a vehicle through a process that is displeasing to all.”

I was especially exciting to see them getting quickly into refi’s on cars. I did a few years ago and it was especially painful and time consuming.

“In addition to modernizing the car buying experience, Prodigy will allow us to bring Upstart’s AI enabled auto loans to dealerships across the country, where the vast majority of loans are transacted.”

Industry Focus with Jason Moser and Matt Frankel

https://www.fool.com/podcasts/industry-focus/2021-05-17-fina…

Motley Fool Live - stocks from scratch - Brian F and Brian S

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R8v-0PjDBY

Unrivaled Investing review of Upstart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgFCcq-LoxU

Recent interview with the CEO, Dave Girouard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkBaasFCqIk

62 Likes