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, a fast-growing Australian fintech startup, has raised a $70 million Series C in its third round of funding in less than 18 months.

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The company, which has developed a mortgage loan platform, set a local record with the latest financing, according to , 鈥渃losing the largest capital raise ever led by local venture funds.鈥�

led the round, which also included participation from , 1Salesforce Ventures is an investor in Crunchbase. They have no say in our editorial process. For more, head here./footnote] , and . The latest infusion brings its to $113 million, according to its Crunchbase profile, and is more than triple the amount of the $25 million it raised last November. Athena Home Loans is now valued at $230 million, according to the Financial Review.

The company plans to use the new capital primarily to expand into home loans, the publication reported, after an initial focus on the refinancing market. It also aims to 鈥渟tart offering loans for property purchases, which is a substantially bigger market,鈥� noted the Review.

Athena Home Loans was founded in 2017 by former bankers and with the goal of 鈥渇reeing people from the mortgage handcuffs鈥� (per ) but did not formally launch its digital lending platform until February of 2019. Within its first three days of launching, the company surpassed $250 million in home loan applications, according to a 听 issued earlier this year by partner Austin-based Q2 Holdings. As of April 2019, Athena had 鈥渨ritten more than $500 million worth of loans,鈥� according to the .

I reached out to the company for more specifics and a spokesperson told me that Athena has had over $4 billion in submitted apps since its launch. Also, in October alone, Athena saw more听than $1.2 billion in applications since announcing that it had passed on the RBA rate cut in full.

Q2 Holdings powers Athena鈥檚 cloud-based platform, which gives users the ability to apply for a loan in 鈥渁s little as 15 minutes and receive a decision in a matter of minutes.鈥� Athena claims to save borrowers an average of $60,000 over the life of their loan.

There鈥檚 no shortage of digital lending platforms here in the United States. We鈥檝e written about a few of them (for example, in June, mortgage tech startup , raised $130 million). But Athena鈥檚 goal is to disrupt Australia鈥檚 , which it says is dominated by banks.

For more on the Australian startup scene, check out Natasha’s piece from earlier this year.

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