Capitella | Agentic financial services for immigrants Skip to content
Personal credit now live in beta (opens LendKoi in a new tab)

Up to $10,000 on day one, no U.S. credit score or citizenship needed. Capitella is building a full financial suite, from credit to wealth management.

Learn more about Capitella: email Mobin Koohestani

Capitella is a financial technology company, not a bank.

See it for

Illustrative demo: a phone shows a strong credit profile from the home country, then No U.S. credit file after arriving, then Capitella verifies identity, income, and cash flow.

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  • 6,000+signups with zero marketing12
  • Top-20U.S. bank partner3
  • $200B+underserved market1

Their financial credibility reset to zero the day they moved to the U.S.

90%of immigrants face barriers getting credit and financial services in the U.S.2
$118K+median H-1B salary6

A well-qualified applicant

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    •
  • No U.S. credit history
ResultDenied
  1. Regulatory gapResidency status isn’t protected under ECOA.
  2. Legacy relianceUnderwriting requires U.S. credit history.
  3. Data gapForeign credit history isn’t imported.

Credit and financial access over time

$300 limit
$10,000 on day one
36+ months5to build great credit across products
Before moveMoves to U.S.After move
  • Legacy banks at the move: $300 limit
  • $10,000 on day one
  • 36+ months5 to build great credit across products
Illustrative line chart of credit and financial access over time, across three points: before the move, the move to the U.S., and after the move. The legacy bank line drops to near zero at the move, to a $300 limit, and climbs slowly, taking 36+ months to build great credit across products. The With Capitella line dips slightly and recovers quickly, with $10,000 available on day one.

The world moves to the U.S.Credit history stays behind.

51M immigrants in the U.S. today7, 78M by 20658.

Illustrative routes.

Illustrative globe. Routes arc from Mumbai, London, São Paulo, Seoul, Berlin, Mexico City, Manila and Lagos to New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, Houston, Chicago and Seattle, then a ring closes around the U.S. Callouts: 44% of NYC’s labor force is foreign-born; 66% of Silicon Valley tech workers are foreign-born.

New York44% of NYC’s labor force is foreign-born10

San Francisco Bay Area66% of Silicon Valley tech workers are foreign-born11

  • $120B+potential annual interest and fee revenue1
  • 20M+qualified immigrants without credit scores1
  • Nearly 50MAmericans are credit invisible or unscoreable4
  • 75%of the world lacks access to credit13

Nested groups from the world to qualified U.S. immigrants: 75% of the world lacks access to credit; nearly 50 million Americans are credit invisible or unscoreable; 20M+ qualified immigrants have no credit scores; $120B+ potential annual interest and fee revenue.

Illustrative, not to scale.
  • 84%want an expat-focused lender2
  • 64%of new expats want help opening a bank account and building credit9

First Citizens Bank CIT Bank

Strategic partnership with First Citizens’ leadership. CIT Bank is a division of First Citizens Bank.

Banks want these borrowers but can’t underwrite them. Capitella can.

$220B+ in assets, a top-20 U.S. bank3
  • Loan originationIn development
  • Depositor referralsLive
  • Cash management accountsLive

Built by a team with experience from

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Personal creditLive (beta)

Personal loans up to $10,000, approved in minutes. No U.S. credit score or citizenship required.

Loan size
up to $10,000
APR
0-18%
Approval time12
About 8 minutes

Identity, income, and cash-flow verification is automated. About 8 minutes from data entry to approval.12 A full walkthrough video is available on request.

Go to LendKoi (opens in a new tab)

Illustrative example. Rates and terms depend on your application.

A phone shows an illustrative payment schedule at payment 3 of 12. A second illustrative screen shows a U.S. credit profile line rising as on-time payments are reported, labelled: The foundation for everything Capitella builds.

Credit has the highest demand in consumer finance, is the hardest to solve, and is the most defensible. Everything else Capitella builds sits on top of it.

  • Highest demand
  • Hardest to solve
  • Most defensible
  • Live (beta)The base

    Personal credit

    Personal loans up to $10,000. The credit profile every other product builds on.

Roadmap products aren’t available yet. Availability and terms will depend on partner banks and applicable licensing.

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Capability Capitella Neobanks Immigrant fintechs Alt-data lenders
Cold-start underwritingNo U.S. bureau file, no prior relationship.YesNoYesnarrow segmentsNorisk-priced, not underwritten
Citizenship agnosticYesNoYesnarrow segmentsNo
AI-native underwriting engineAutomated decisions at scale.YesNocustomer data onlyNomanual reviewPartialmixed capabilities
Bank ecosystem partnerOrigination, deposits, compliance, tech.YesNocompetes with banksNoPartialorigination only
Competitive rates for the credit-invisibleYesNoNoNo
Embedded credit-buildingEvery product grows a U.S. credit profile.YesNoNoNo

Based on publicly available product offerings; not all capabilities are directly comparable. The full comparison is in the deck.

Approvals are constrained by capital today. New lending capital goes to borrowers who have already applied.

Independent BSA/AML audit complete

2,000+ applications12
A man in a tan blazer on the Brooklyn waterfront at sunset holds up his phone. The screen shows an illustrative Capitella update: on-time payment reported, payment 4 of 12, and a rising U.S. credit profile line.

Ajay’s story

Ajay had three years of on-time U.S. payments, strong income, and steady employment. His file was still too thin for lenders to score. Capitella funded him.

  • Portrait of Mobin Koohestani

    Mobin Koohestani

    Founder and CEO

    Led credit, rates, and FX desks, structuring risk for funds and financial institutions. Top-ranked in a 1,000+ client survey at Goldman Sachs.

    Background: Goldman Sachs, Barclays

  • Portrait of Paul Nagai

    Paul Nagai

    COO

    Led consumer credit and program teams at JPMorgan and Bear Stearns. Led consumer banking and credit team at EY.

    Background: J.P. Morgan, EY, Accenture

  • Portrait of Mehdi Mohammadi

    Mehdi Mohammadi

    Technology, PhD, AI

    Full-stack ML engineer and data scientist across fintech credit, lead generation, and fraud.

    Background: Rocket Mortgage, Block, Intuit

  • Portrait of Edmond Li

    Edmond Li

    Technology, PhD, AI

    Repeat CTO building AI growth engines for global markets.

    Background: University of Cambridge, Institut Polytechnique de Paris

  • Portrait of Ling Qing Meng

    Ling Qing Meng

    Technology

    Boundary-pushing founder shipping zero-to-one AI products.

    Background: Branch, Lucia

  • Portrait of George Rosello

    George RoselloAdvisor

    Technology, AI

    Award-winning AI/ML architect for the largest public health system.

    Background: Jackson Health System, Baptist Health

  • Portrait of Tara O’Donnell

    Tara O’DonnellAdvisor

    Communications

    Global brand architect; former Head of Comms at Samsung.

    Background: Samsung, Archetype, Hotwire

  • Portrait of Josh Pugh

    Josh PughAdvisor

    Marketing

    Founder of America Josh, the definitive expat guide to the U.S.

    Background: America Josh, Fortnight Digital

1

Credit first. Then everything else.

Contact

Mobin Koohestani, Founder and CEO

hello@capitella.com

Backed by

Techstars

15 notes

Third-party sources unless marked as company data or a company estimate. Notes 14 and 15 describe planned product terms.

  1. 1Capitella estimate. Methodology is available in our market opportunity diligence materials. Applies to the $200B+ underserved market and domestic credit opportunity, $120B+ potential annual interest and fee revenue, and 20M+ qualified immigrants without credit scores. Back
  2. 2Censuswide Survey, 2025. 90% of immigrants face barriers getting credit; 84% want an expat-focused lender; only 4% feel they have access to mainstream credit. Back
  3. 3First Citizens BancShares, second quarter 2026 earnings release, July 23, 2026. First Citizens describes itself as a top 20 U.S. financial institution with more than $225 billion in assets. Back
  4. 4Experian and Oliver Wyman, January 2022. Expanded data and analytics can improve access to credit for nearly 50 million credit invisible and unscoreable Americans. Back
  5. 5Capitella analysis of survey data from thousands of immigrants, measuring time to build great credit across products. Back
  6. 6U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Characteristics of H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers, FY2022. The median annual salary for H-1B workers was $118,000. Back
  7. 7Pew Research Center, “What the data says about immigrants in the U.S.,” August 2025. 51.9 million immigrants lived in the U.S. as of June 2025. Back
  8. 8Pew Research Center, “Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S.,” September 2015. Projects 78 million immigrants in the U.S. by 2065. Back
  9. 9America Josh poll of 1,123 new expats, 2026. 64% of new expats want help opening a bank account and building credit. America Josh was founded by Capitella advisor Josh Pugh. Back
  10. 10Office of the New York State Comptroller, March 2024. Foreign-born workers made up 44.3% of New York City’s labor force in 2023. Back
  11. 11Joint Venture Silicon Valley, 2025 Silicon Valley Index. 66% of technology workers in Silicon Valley are foreign-born. Back
  12. 12Company data as of September 2026. Back
  13. 13World Bank Financial Inclusion; Lucidity Insights. Roughly three-quarters of adults worldwide remain unbanked or underbanked, without access to formal credit. Back
  14. 14Planned credit card terms, not final. Cash back rates vary by category. Rates up to 10% may apply only to select categories, may rotate or be promotional, and may be subject to spending caps. Card issued by a partner bank, subject to approval. Final terms will be disclosed at launch. Back
  15. 15Planned debit card terms, not final. Deposit account and card provided through a partner bank, subject to approval. Final terms will be disclosed at launch. Back