Introduction
Nova Credit is a credit infrastructure company that translates international credit bureau records and cash-flow bank data into standardized, lender-ready reports. It was founded in 2016 by Misha Esipov, Nicky Goulimis, and Loek Janssen, who met as graduate students at Stanford University after noticing how difficult it was for international students to get a credit card or rent an apartment with no U.S. credit history.
Rather than building a new scoring algorithm from scratch, Nova Credit’s core contribution is data plumbing: negotiating access to foreign credit bureaus and bank data sources, then converting that information into a format U.S. lenders can plug into their own underwriting systems. For readers of Brel’s AI in finance coverage, Nova Credit is a reminder that expanding who AI-driven credit models can evaluate often depends on solving data-access problems first.
What the company does
Nova Credit’s flagship product, Credit Passport, lets a consumer authorize the transfer of their credit history from a foreign credit bureau, which Nova Credit then translates into a standardized report a U.S. lender can read. The company has since expanded into Cash Atlas, a cash-flow underwriting product built on bank transaction data, and Income Navigator, an automated income-verification tool — both aimed at borrowers whom traditional credit bureau data serves poorly, not just recent immigrants.
Who it serves
Nova Credit’s customers are lenders and other consumer-facing businesses — banks, credit card issuers, telecom providers, and property managers — that want to expand who they can approve without abandoning their existing risk framework. The company’s own materials list customers including HSBC, SoFi, Scotiabank, American Express, Verizon, RBC, and property-management platforms Appfolio and Yardi.
Company background
Misha Esipov, Nicky Goulimis, and Loek Janssen founded Nova Credit in 2016 after meeting at Stanford, where Esipov and Goulimis were pursuing MBAs and Janssen was completing a master’s degree; the company went through Y Combinator that year. Nova Credit raised a $50 million Series B round in February 2020 at a reported $295 million valuation. Co-founder Loek Janssen left the company in late 2019, and co-founder Nicky Goulimis stepped back from active management in 2021, though she remained on Nova Credit’s board until 2024; both have since co-founded their own fintech startups outside the United States, according to Forbes’ 2025 profile of the company. Misha Esipov continues to serve as CEO. Nova Credit raised a $45 million Series C round in October 2023 led by Canapi Ventures, and a $35 million Series D round in October 2025 led by Socium Ventures, Cox Enterprises’ venture arm, with participation from existing investors including Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst, Index Ventures, and Y Combinator.
Product and AI capabilities
Nova Credit’s technology centers on standardizing and analyzing alternative credit data rather than replacing a lender’s own underwriting model: Credit Passport translates foreign bureau data into a U.S.-readable format, while Cash Atlas applies analytics to bank transaction data to support cash-flow underwriting for borrowers with thin or no traditional credit files. According to American Banker’s 2025 reporting, large institutions including JPMorgan Chase and PayPal have been expanding their own use of cash-flow underwriting, a trend Nova Credit’s Series D round was raised to help capitalize on as the company extends the approach into auto and personal lending.
Key developments
Nova Credit was founded in 2016 and raised a $50 million Series B round in February 2020. Two of its three co-founders subsequently stepped back from the business — Loek Janssen in late 2019 and Nicky Goulimis from active management in 2021 — leaving CEO Misha Esipov as the remaining founder in daily operations. The company raised a $45 million Series C round in October 2023 and a $35 million Series D round in October 2025 led by Socium Ventures, aimed at expanding its cash-flow underwriting products into new credit categories including auto and personal loans.
Why it matters
Nova Credit is a useful counterpoint to AI-underwriting companies that focus purely on modeling: its core value is making previously inaccessible data — a foreign credit history, or granular bank transaction data — usable by conventional and AI-driven lenders alike. As cash-flow underwriting gains adoption at large banks, the standardized data pipes that companies like Nova Credit build become a meaningful factor in how many additional borrowers AI-driven credit models can actually evaluate.
Sector context
Nova Credit sits within Brel’s AI in finance coverage as a credit-data infrastructure provider, playing a role for underwriting models comparable to what Plaid provides for account-verification and personal-finance apps — supplying the standardized data that other companies’ models are built on rather than issuing credit decisions itself. Its focus on cross-border and cash-flow data also makes it a useful complement to underwriting-model vendors such as Zest AI, which depend on having enough usable applicant data in the first place before any model can add value.
Sources and references
This profile is based on Nova Credit’s own corporate blog post and official funding announcement for its Series D round, alongside Forbes’ 2025 profile of the company’s founding and leadership history.
- Nova Credit — “Building the Credit Bureau of the Future: Reflections on Our Series D” (2025)
- BusinessWire — Nova Credit Series D funding announcement (2025)
- Forbes — “Inside The Unlikely Turnaround Of A Fintech Helping Immigrants Get Access To Credit” (2025)