Built a unified borrower experience with seamless, end-to-end auth

Flatiron Realty Capital is a privately funded real-estate lender that helps investors and developers build world-class portfolios with alternative financing options. Since founding in 2018, they’ve successfully backed everything from fix-and-flip and ground-up construction projects to single-family rental homes and large, multifamily properties. Within a short period of time, they’ve experienced exponential growth, having deployed hundreds of millions of dollars in business-purpose loans.

Behind Flatiron’s achievements is a robust underwriting system that sets a high but thoughtful bar for potential borrowers. That means their team processes and analyzes a large amount of data, evaluating track records, credit histories, liquidity profiles, and more. To consolidate this data and streamline the loan lifecycle from signup and application to decisioning and onboarding, they need a full-service authentication solution that unites all related activities and documents under a single user account. That’s where Stytch comes in.

Partnership highlights

• Off-the-shelf auth: With Stytch, it took Flatiron less than a week to implement their sign up and log in flows, saving their two-person engineering team at least two months of work.
• Built-in confidence: Flatiron can lean on Stytch to provide expertise and keep up with the latest industry standards, so they don’t have to hire an auth specialist in-house.
• Room to grow: As Flatiron expands, they know they can easily work additional auth factors into a progressive MFA flow, thanks to Stytch’s flexible product suite.

Stytch products

• Email Magic Links
• Session Management

Challenge

There are many steps to the loan origination process, from setting up and verifying a new account to making a credit decision and onboarding an approved borrower. For a fast-moving lender like Flatiron, that also involves monitoring a user’s progress and keeping close track of all their linked workflows and materials to ensure a quick close time.

At its inception, Flatiron had to assemble isolated digital tools to connect and protect their users’ data. They knew they needed a more comprehensive authentication and identity management solution that could unite it all under a single, secure account.

Flatiron tried other auth providers at first, but couldn’t dedicate the time needed to make sense of their complex documentation — in some cases, even after several sales calls. Given the sensitivity of the data they work with and the complexity of handling metadata and role-based permissions, they were looking for an auth partner that offered clarity and efficiency, rather than roadblocks.

Solution

With one glance at Stytch’s docs, Flatiron knew they’d found an answer. It took their two-person engineering team less than a week to get essential auth flows up and running, saving them at least two months of busywork.

Stytch’s passwordless auth flows also mean Flatiron’s users can enjoy a smooth experience without putting their data at risk.

What’s more, Stytch offers an extra layer of security with session management, allowing Flatiron to track users’ IP addresses, monitor logins, and flip a kill switch if they detect suspicious activity.

As Flatiron expands, they plan to add auth factors — like SMS One-Time Passcodes and TOTP Authenticator Apps — downstream in the user journey, to protect riskier actions like editing contact details or scheduling automatic payments. Thanks to Stytch’s integrated suite of turnkey products, they know they can implement new flows at the click of a button, without adding friction to their users’ experience.

Results

With Stytch’s speed and flexibility at their back, Contrary was able to launch quickly. And now, they can scale and adapt their auth flows to their growing community’s needs.

• 2+ months saved: Stytch’s clear docs and turnkey solutions allowed Flatiron to launch their auth flows quickly and focus on their core products.
• <1 week to scale: Flatiron can drag-and-drop new auth factors from Stytch’s flexible suite whenever they choose, allowing them to build custom MFA flows that work for their users.
• <2 weeks to close: Stytch streamlines Flatiron’s sign up and log in flows and makes it easy to manage and track users’ accounts, allowing them to process more loans faster.
• Bottom line, boosted: Flatiron knows they can rely on Stytch for the gold standard in auth, saving them the time and expense of an in-house expert.

The bottom line

With Stytch’s simple, scalable auth, Flatiron has not only saved countless time and resources building and managing their flows, they’ve given users security they can count on.

While the past year has seen an overall decline in lending, Flatiron is thriving — and they’ve used any lulls to upgrade their infrastructure and generate increased value for their users. That includes exploring Stytch’s product suite and looking for ways to drive an even smoother underwriting process and even faster close times. They’re particularly interested in trying innovative new auth methods like Strong CAPTCHA and Device Fingerprinting.

What can Stytch do for you?

Jump into our Docs to learn more about our flexible, frictionless auth solutions — or sign up for a free account to try them out for yourself. Have questions? Reach us via Slack, Stytch Forum, or email