Elio Mortgage, an AI-native mortgage company, has emerged from stealth with US$5.1 million in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Motive Partners and Social Leverage, with participation from Jeff Horing, co-founder and managing director of Insight Partners, as an angel investor. The company is seeking to rebuild mortgage origination end to end by embedding artificial intelligence directly into a licensed mortgage operation.
Founded to Rewrite Mortgage Economics
Elio was founded by Oren Michaely, whose background spans engineering at Microsoft and serving as Director of AI at Motive Partners, and Arad Lev Ari, who previously worked in real estate investing and investment banking at KKR and Deutsche Bank. The founders are redesigning mortgage origination by focusing on the operating model and unit economics rather than selling software into the industry. Their goal is to transform the experience and economics for both loan officers and borrowers.
A Platform Built Inside a Working Mortgage Operation
For decades, mortgage technology has improved individual parts of the origination process while loan officers and operations teams connected fragmented systems themselves. Elio takes a different approach by developing its proprietary AI-native platform within a working mortgage operation, where engineers and loan officers work side by side. This live environment allows the company to redesign origination from inside the workflow instead of applying external point solutions.
Embedded Mortgage Capabilities for Trusted Partners
Elio is also using its infrastructure to serve as the embedded mortgage arm for financial advisors, real estate agents, home builders, and institutional owners of single-family rental portfolios. These businesses hold trusted customer relationships and built-in mortgage demand, but they often lack the operational capacity to originate loans themselves. Through Elio Embedded, partners can offer mortgage services without building or operating a mortgage business.
Investor Confidence in an AI-Native Shift
CEO and Co-Founder Oren Michaely said the mortgage industry has spent years digitizing individual processes while people remain responsible for stitching those processes together. He explained that AI creates an opportunity to redesign the entire origination model, including how work is divided between people and technology and how organizations are structured. Harsh Govil, Partner, Venture at Motive Partners, said next-generation financial services are being built around AI systems that coordinate and execute work across operations rather than automating isolated tasks.
Plans for Growth and Capital Deployment
The US$5.1 million Pre-Seed round will support continued product development, expansion of Elio's licensed mortgage operations nationwide, and recruitment of loan officers as the company scales its AI-native brokerage model. Matt Ober, Managing Director at Social Leverage, said the firm invests in founders who challenge entrenched industries with new business models. He added that Elio's combination of an AI-native operating model and embedded distribution strategy enables partners to make mortgage financing a seamless extension of services they already provide.
Elio Mortgage enters the market at a time when artificial intelligence is prompting a broader reassessment of operational efficiency across financial services. By combining a licensed brokerage with an embedded platform strategy, the company is attempting to demonstrate a fundamentally different approach to loan origination. The initial backing from Motive Partners, Social Leverage, and Jeff Horing positions Elio to test whether an AI-native operating model can deliver meaningful improvements in cost, speed, and borrower experience.