Edly Announces $175 Million in New Investments

New Financing Commitments to Support Education Loans for More Than 15,000 Students and Drive Platform Innovation

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Mar 09, 2022, 06:11 ET

NEW YORK, March 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Edly, the nation's only student loan platform offering income-based repayment (IBR) loans in the private sector, today announced it has secured up to an additional $175 million in future flow financing commitments. The investments are from funds and co-investment vehicles managed by Medalist Partners, a private credit and special opportunities investment manager, and Windmuehle Funds, a manager of non-traditional private alternative investments.

Edly investors support student success while generating a predictable monthly cash flow with attractive returns from a diversified portfolio. The financing facilities announced today will be used to fund IBR loans to students across the US. In addition, the two investment firms have made direct investments in Edly Inc.

"We are truly fortunate to be able to partner with best-in-class investors like Medalist and Windmuehle. Medalist is well known as an experienced investor in asset-based investments. Windmuehle and its principals are equally well known for their experience in funding emerging alternative investment managers. The combination of their experience and financing will deliver a powerful boost for our mission to close the funding gap and help solve the student loan crisis," said Edly CEO Chris Ricciardi.

"We believe the combination of strong underwriting, product innovation, and a top-notch management team is a great recipe for success," said Jim Regan, private credit sector manager for Medalist Partners. "We are excited to add this credit facility to our portfolio of high-quality asset-based lending programs."

"Windmuehle is excited to partner with Edly in providing outcome-oriented financing solutions that are aligned with student success," said Robert Lee, founder and chief investment officer of Windmuehle LLC.

As the sole private sector platform offering IBR loans, Edly is the only way for investors to fund student success while aligning their interests to those of borrowers. These financing commitments will enable Edly to provide affordable education financing to more students pursuing degrees in Nursing, STEM, Accounting, and other fields. Edly's approach to underwriting primarily focuses on specific schools, programs, and historic student outcomes, while basing future loan payments on a student's actual salary, alleviating the uncertainty and risk many borrowers face in choosing how to finance their education.

IBR loans are a fast-growing alternative to traditional private student loans. A properly structured IBR loan aligns the interests of the student, the school and potential investors. Instead of paying a fixed interest rate, a student agrees to pay a fixed percentage of their earnings for a fixed number of months once they are employed and are earning a threshold salary. Borrower payments are subject to a cap on the total number of payments or total amount paid, as well as an APR cap.

About Medalist Partners
Medalist Partners is a privately held, SEC-registered, alternative investment manager. Medalist and its affiliates collectively manage approximately $2.1 billion in assets under management across strategies in asset-based private credit, structured credit and CLOs. Founded in 2018, Medalist is headquartered in New York City. Clients include pensions, endowments, foundations, banks, family offices and high net worth individuals. For more information visit www.medalistpartners.com.

About Windmuehle Funds
Windmuehle ("Windmill") is a private investment platform located in Austin, Texas. They source, diligence, and structure niche private investments for Member investors. Members include high net worth individuals, wealth advisors, foundations, IRAs, and alternative funds.

About Edly
Edly is a platform that connects students looking to fund college tuition with investors looking to support social impact investments in education. Edly focuses on a type of tuition funding known as income-based repayment loans ("IBR loans"), the only regulated student lending model of its kind in the private sector. Students benefit from a repayment process that is tailored specifically to their starting salary and adjusts with their professional progress. This unique model uses historical data about student outcomes from sources such as the Department of Education, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, private databases, and Edly's proprietary data to underwrite the likely success of student borrowers without relying on traditional credit scores or co-signers. This has enabled Edly to facilitate more flexible, affordable and accessible education funding for students pursuing degrees in nursing, teaching, journalism, social work, STEM, accounting and more. Edly has funded more than 4,000 students since its launch in 2019 and is available to provide education financing to students at more than 1,800 of the leading US colleges and universities. All student IBR loans are unsecured personal student loans originated by FinWise Bank, a Utah chartered commercial bank, member FDIC.

SOURCE Edly, Inc.