Elio Mortgage emerges from stealth with $5.1 million pre-seed round

Elio Mortgage, a New York-based startup describing itself as an AI-native mortgage company, has emerged from stealth with $5.1 million in pre-seed funding. The round was co-led by Motive Partners and Social Leverage, and Jeff Horing also participated as an angel investor. Elio says the money will go toward product development, expanding its licensed mortgage operations nationwide, and hiring loan officers as it scales its brokerage model. The company describes its business as a redesign of the end-to-end mortgage origination process, and a report on the launch says it was founded in 2026 by Oren Michaely and Arad Lev Ari.