Lendorse

Lendorse is a German fintech that finances higher education for international students through income share agreements (ISAs) rather than conventional student loans. Applicants apply online, providing details of their academic background, degree phase and visa status, and eligible students can receive up to €20,000 toward tuition or living costs. Repayment begins only once the graduate is earning, and is set at a fixed share of salary — typically around 8–12% for three to five years — with no interest, no collateral and no co-signer required. Because repayment is contingent on income, students who do not earn do not repay.

Alongside financing, Lendorse operates a career platform that supports students across the study lifecycle: initial orientation in the destination country (such as opening a bank account and arranging health insurance), academic support including semester reports and mentor matching, and career development via job matching, job-search assistance, CV and cover-letter help, mock interviews, mentoring, relocation guidance and introductions to industry contacts. The company describes its target group as talented STEM students from developing and emerging economies pursuing master's degrees in Germany, a segment often excluded by banks and other providers because of missing local credit history, guarantees or nationality restrictions.

Underwriting is handled by a proprietary, data-driven engine that the company says collects up to 150 hard and soft data points to estimate an applicant's future income distribution, assessing academic performance, career trajectory, market demand and personal motivation. Lendorse positions this model as tailored to international students, as opposed to general-purpose ISA scoring built for domestic borrowers.

Founding story

Lendorse was founded in 2022 by Bjoern Christian Wolf, Evgenii Avdeev and Hannah Sharpe. Avdeev had personally faced financial difficulty as an international student, working multiple jobs and being denied traditional loans because he lacked European credit history; Wolf had encountered income share agreements and wanted to remove barriers preventing talented people from realising their potential regardless of birthplace.

Business model

Lendorse provides upfront capital for tuition and living expenses to students under income share agreements and recovers that capital as a fixed percentage of the student's post-graduation salary over a defined period. It combines the financing product with a career and integration platform intended to improve employment outcomes, which in turn supports repayment performance. The company funds its lending book partly with debt capital and works with lending partners, and describes plans to expand this partner base.

Returns come from income-share repayments: graduates repay roughly 8–12% of salary for three to five years once they are earning, with no interest charged and no payments due if the graduate does not earn.

Traction

Lendorse says its first two student cohorts were supported successfully and the basic version of its career platform is functional and in use. It has published student testimonials from graduates now working in Germany, and states a plan to deploy €10 million to fund more than 1,000 students over the following three to five years. It secured up to €10 million in debt capital from Swiss i2 Group in September 2024 and received the European Investment Fund's Skills and Education Guarantee.

Latest developments

In June 2025 Lendorse announced a €1.75 million round co-led by LUMO Labs and Soulmates Ventures with PI Impact and angel investor Daniel Naber, to be used for product development and team expansion. The company also reported receiving the European Investment Fund's Skills and Education Guarantee and outlined plans to add lending partners, sharpen underwriting and validate scalability.