Serial fintech entrepreneur Lamine Zarrad started his journey as a refugee. His family was forced to flee from Baku first to Moscow to escape the ongoing ethnic conflict with neighboring Armenia.
After six years in the Russian capital as refugees, they immigrated to the U.S., where Zarrad finished high school.
“My mother met an American while in Moscow, and it was he who enabled us to escape,” says Zarrad. “He worked for a mission that supported refugees, and my mother was helping that organization.” They eventually got married.
Zarrad lived in his stepfather’s home state of Georgia, and there he received a green card. “It was certainly a privilege, as most refugees don’t get this kind of access, and having green cards waiting for them,” admits Zarrad.
From refugee to entrepreneur
The sky was the limit for Zarrad at that time, believing he had little time to waste. He joined the Marine Corps, only years removed from when he was a teenage refugee from the Soviet Union. Later, Zarrad earned a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin.
“My first job out of college was working at Merrill Lynch, so that put me on a career path that was very finance-geared,” says Zarrad.
“I wanted to understand policy factors in this really complicated landscape, what monetary policy is, and the impact. In these years, I really felt that I could do things on my own. I had this real desire to branch out.”
His first company, Tokken, empowered consumers with an easy-to-use and secure payment option between banks and the cannabis businesses.
Zarrad later founded Joust, another fintech startup that provided business banking services for self-employed individuals. He served as product head when it was later acquired by ZenBusiness.
From debt to freedom
StellarFi is Zarrad’s third fintech startup in the past decade. The credit-building platform reports recurring monthly payments, such as rent and utilities, to major credit bureaus.
In 2023, StellarFi raised 15 million in Series A funding led by Acrew Capital.
“People now pay bills that are not necessarily reflected on their credit reports,” says Zarrad. “Because we have visibility for those bills, we can furnish that data to credit bureaus and therefore impact credit scores positively. Most Americans are habitually late on payments. We help people pay their bills on time.”
According to Zarrad, members on average raise their credit scores by twenty-six points in their first month. He says one can link any bill to the account set up.
“Put the bills on the platform, and we pay that money on the balance sheet, and then you pay us back. It’s like a credit card, but not a credit line where you can use it anywhere.”
StellarFi’s team consists of twenty-five members and has its hub in Austin, while its staff is spread throughout the country, including in the Bay Area, Chicago, and Miami.
Reflecting on his journey, Zarrad believes his refugee experience has uniquely equipped him for entrepreneurship.
“The refugee experience is still highly stigmatized for many reasons,” he says. “It’s an experience of survival. You are sort of in this new place against your will, and you have to figure things out. It’s just basically like building a company out of nothing. In this way, refugees make really good entrepreneurs for that reason because they are forced to take those risks and do a number of things in order to be successful.”
Last year, StellarFi purchased and forgave $50 million worth of consumer debt in order to free Americans, whether or not they are current StellarFi customers, from financial burdens.
