Investment Firm Waltz Secures $25M Line of Credit

In a sign that U.S. real estate investment remains a safe harbor for foreigners, investment company Waltz announced Tuesday that it has secured a $25 million line of credit, bringing its total debt and equity funding to $50 million.

Setpoint Capital provided the new funding to support Miami-based Waltz’s up to $1 billion in loan volume capability for foreign investors looking to invest in U.S. residential real estate.

“The demand is growing,” said Yuval Golan, founder and CEO of Waltz, which plans to use the new funding to expand into Latin America and meet some of that demand. “What we see in the market, even though there’s some uncertainty, is that foreigners keep investing and being very bullish on America right now, especially the sophisticated investors. A lot of demand is from countries that are seeing some macro political issues.”

The line of credit is intended to originate additional U.S. mortgage loans for foreign buyers through its digital platform, which will support Waltz’s official launch across Central and South America, with a focus on Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Argentina — the first three being the region’s largest sources of U.S. real estate investment. Data shows that Latin American buyers make up 29 percent of international investors in U.S. residential real estate purchases of existing property sales, not including new developments.

In addition, Golan is seeing investor interest from Canada, Cuba, Israel, Russia and Ukraine.

“We don’t use our equity funds to lend,” said Golan. “We use a warehouse line that we can recycle, so then we can lend more and more. How does this work? Let’s say I have a line of credit of $25 million and at any given moment I have $25 million to lend. I originate the loan, then we sell that loan to Apollo or Acra Lending, one of our other secondary market players. They pay us back the principal plus the premium, and then I can redeploy the capital to use that again. Let’s say I sell to them every week. That means that I can recycle the $25 million times 52, and I use this money to turn it into a billion.

“These are premium buyers that understand what they’re doing, and people believe in the U.S. economy,” said Golan of his international clients. “And that’s the time to raise and boost up the demand. There’s a lot of new construction coming up in the next few years. Post-COVID, things got a bit delayed, but now they’re coming back and inventory is back up.”

Waltz’s end-to-end digital platform allows foreign investors to quickly and easily form an LLC, open a U.S. bank account, exchange currencies, secure financing, and close on property purchases. It launched in July 2024 and has processed more than $300 million in loan applications on four continents, with 15 to 20 percent of clients being U.S.-based high-credit borrowers, according to Waltz.

The company uses its AI-enhanced technology across its platform, including onboarding, underwriting, processing, and selling loans to Wall Street institutions including Acra Lending, a subsidiary of HPS acquired by BlackRock; and Atlas SP, which is backed by Apollo.

“We have a lot of data on our loans,” said Golan. “Many Wall Street players are very excited about our product and are partnering up with us. We automate and use artificial intelligence more and more, so that we can sell the loans faster with a lot of data. So they’re very excited about it.”

“With Waltz’s full-service approach, they are streamlining investment opportunities and making it easier for individuals across the globe to invest in income-producing residential properties in the U.S.,” said Kendall Ranjbaran, managing director of investments at Setpoint Capital. “Setpoint is proud to provide a tailored credit solution as they continue to scale.”

Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com.