Upstart Holdings Inc (UPST) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to the Upstart Q4 FY 2021 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Jason Schmidt, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

美好的一天，歡迎參加 Upstart 2021 財年第四季度財報電話會議。今天的會議正在錄製中。在這個時候，我想把會議交給投資者關係副總裁 Jason Schmidt。請繼續，先生。

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Upstart's fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results. With us today are Dave Girouard, Upstart's Chief Executive Officer; and Sanjay Datta, our Chief Financial Officer.

下午好，感謝您參加今天的電話會議，討論 Upstart 的第四季度和 2021 年全年財務業績。今天和我們在一起的是Upstart 的首席執行官Dave Girouard；和我們的首席財務官 Sanjay Datta。

Before we begin, I want to remind you that shortly after the market closed today, Upstart issued a press release announcing its fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results and published an Investor Relations presentation. Both are available on our Investor Relations website, ir.upstart.com. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements, such as guidance for the first quarter and full year 2022 related to our business and our plans to expand our platform in the future. These statements are based on our current expectations and information available to us today and are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual results may differ materially as a result of various risk factors that have been described in our filings with the SEC. As a result, we caution you against placing undue reliance on these forward-looking statements as we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events, except as required by law.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，在今天市場收盤後不久，Upstart 發布了一份新聞稿，宣布了其 2021 年第四季度和全年的財務業績，並發布了一份投資者關係報告。兩者都可以在我們的投資者關係網站 ir.upstart.com 上找到。在電話會議期間，我們將做出前瞻性陳述，例如與我們的業務相關的第一季度和 2022 年全年的指導以及我們未來擴展平台的計劃。這些陳述基於我們目前的預期和我們今天可獲得的信息，並受到各種風險、不確定性和假設的影響。由於我們在提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件中描述的各種風險因素，實際結果可能存在重大差異。因此，我們告誡您不要過度依賴這些前瞻性陳述，因為我們不承擔因新信息或未來事件而更新任何前瞻性陳述的義務，除非法律要求。

In addition, during today's call, unless otherwise stated, references to our results are provided as non-GAAP financial measures and are reconciled to our GAAP results, which can be found in the earnings release and supplemental tables. (Operator Instructions) Later this quarter, Upstart will be participating in Jefferies Payments and FinTech Summit on March 1, JMP's Securities Technology Conference on March 8 and Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media and Telco Conference on March 9.

此外，在今天的電話會議中，除非另有說明，否則對我們結果的引用作為非公認會計原則財務指標提供，並與我們的公認會計原則結果相一致，可在收益發布和補充表格中找到。 （操作員說明）本季度晚些時候，Upstart 將參加 3 月 1 日的 Jefferies Payments 和 FinTech 峰會、3 月 8 日的 JMP 證券技術會議和 3 月 9 日的摩根士丹利技術、媒體和電信會議。

Now I'd like to turn it over to Dave Girouard, CEO of Upstart.

現在我想把它交給 Upstart 的首席執行官 Dave Girouard。

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our earnings call covering our fourth quarter and full year 2021 results. I'm Dave Girouard, Co-Founder and CEO of Upstart.

大家下午好。感謝您加入我們的財報電話會議，涵蓋我們的第四季度和 2021 年全年業績。我是 Upstart 的聯合創始人兼首席執行官 Dave Girouard。

We're 1.5 months into the new year, and I'm grateful finally to have the opportunity to reconnect with the investor community. Some quiet periods just feel longer than others. We have seen some epic progress at upstart in the past few months, and I'm excited to share what we've been up to, the results we've been seeing and how we're thinking about 2022 and beyond.

新的一年已經過去了 1.5 個月，我很高興終於有機會與投資者社區重新建立聯繫。一些安靜的時期只是感覺比其他時期更長。在過去的幾個月裡，我們看到了暴發戶取得了一些史詩般的進展，我很高興分享我們一直在做的事情，我們一直在看到的結果以及我們對 2022 年及以後的看法。

Let me state upfront that we're in a multi-decade mission to put affordable credit within reach of every American. The price of credit is the price of opportunity and the price of mobility. And we want to ensure that opportunity and mobility are available to all Americans, particularly for those whom the financial system has failed in the past.

讓我提前聲明，我們正在執行一項數十年的使命，即讓每個美國人都能負擔得起的信貸。信貸的價格是機會的價格和流動性的價格。我們希望確保所有美國人都能獲得機會和流動性，特別是那些過去金融體系失敗的人。

But like you, we've been eyes wide open, watching all that's happening in the world in the last few months: the rise and fall of the Omicron variant, the clear signs of inflation and the Fed's plan to counter it, and of course, the market rotation out of high-growth technology. But through all of it, our business continues to get stronger and my confidence in Upstart's future has never been greater. As the rare public technology company with triple-digit growth and profits, we're confident that an economy and market in transition plays to our strength.

但和你一樣，我們一直睜大眼睛，注視著過去幾個月世界上發生的一切：Omicron 變體的興衰、通脹的明顯跡像以及美聯儲的應對計劃，當然還有，市場輪轉出高成長技術。但通過這一切，我們的業務不斷發展壯大，我對 Upstart 未來的信心從未如此強烈。作為少有的擁有三位數增長和利潤的上市科技公司，我們相信轉型中的經濟和市場會發揮我們的優勢。

I'd like to start by reflecting on 2021, which was a remarkable year for Upstart. We grew revenue from $233 million in 2020 to $849 million in 2021 while generating net income of $137 million. And with the fourth quarter surge, we're now at more than $1 billion in revenue on an annualized basis. 2021 will be remembered as the year AI lending came to the forefront, kicking off the most impactful transformation of credit in decades.

我想首先回顧一下 2021 年，這對於 Upstart 來說是非凡的一年。我們的收入從 2020 年的 2.33 億美元增長到 2021 年的 8.49 億美元，同時產生了 1.37 億美元的淨收入。隨著第四季度的激增，我們現在的年收入超過 10 億美元。 2021 年將被銘記為人工智能貸款走在前列的一年，開啟了幾十年來最具影響力的信貸轉型。

To gain some perspective on what Upstart achieved in 2021, we looked for another company in the public markets with our combination of scale, growth and profits, but we were unable to find one. Our profits are neither marginal nor ephemeral. We generated more cash in 2021 than we burned in our entire 8-plus years as a private company.

為了了解 Upstart 在 2021 年取得的成就，我們在公開市場上尋找另一家兼具規模、增長和利潤的公司，但我們找不到。我們的利潤既不是微不足道的，也不是短暫的。作為一家私營公司，我們在 2021 年產生的現金比我們在整個 8 年多的時間裡消耗的現金還多。

Profits matter for a reason. They allowed us to invest significantly in our future by more than doubling our headcount in product, engineering and machine learning in 2021. This unusual combination of growth and profits in a heavily competed industry is evidence of a distinct competitive advantage and clear operating leverage. It also suggests that you're witnessing the creation of an industry-defining category, artificial intelligence lending and the emergence of the category leader, Upstart.

利潤很重要是有原因的。它們使我們能夠在 2021 年將我們在產品、工程和機器學習方面的員工人數增加一倍以上，從而對我們的未來進行重大投資。在競爭激烈的行業中，這種不同尋常的增長和利潤組合證明了獨特的競爭優勢和明確的運營槓桿。它還表明，您正在目睹一個行業定義類別的創建、人工智能貸款以及類別領導者 Upstart 的出現。

In addition to reaching $1 billion in annualized revenue and record profits, Q4 was special for other reasons. It was the first quarter with more than $4 billion in loan transactions on our platform, a record not just for Upstart, but potentially for the entire personal lending industry. Our bank and credit union partners originated almost 500,000 loans in the quarter. We also now have 42 banks and credit unions as well as more than 150 institutional investors funding loans on the Upstart platform, providing deep and diverse sources of liquidity to keep the engine humming and the AI models learning.

除了達到 10 億美元的年收入和創紀錄的利潤外，第四季度還有其他一些特殊的原因。這是第一季度，我們平台上的貸款交易額超過 40 億美元，這不僅是 Upstart 的記錄，而且可能是整個個人貸款行業的記錄。我們的銀行和信用合作社合作夥伴在本季度發放了近 500,000 筆貸款。我們現在還擁有 42 家銀行和信用合作社以及 150 多家機構投資者在 Upstart 平台上為貸款提供資金，提供豐富多樣的流動性來源，以保持引擎運轉和 AI 模型學習。

I'm also pleased to report that we now have 7 lenders on the Upstart platform with no minimum FICO score required. But perhaps the most important achievement of the last quarter of 2021 was the incredible work done by our auto team. Through a relentless and determined cross-functional effort, this team put the last essential pieces in place necessary to begin scaling auto lending on the Upstart platform. I'll come back to this topic in a moment.

我也很高興地報告，我們現在在 Upstart 平台上有 7 家貸方，不需要最低 FICO 分數。但也許 2021 年最後一個季度最重要的成就是我們汽車團隊所做的令人難以置信的工作。通過不懈和堅定的跨職能努力，該團隊將開始在 Upstart 平台上擴展汽車貸款所需的最後幾個基本部分落實到位。我稍後會回到這個話題。

I'd like to note that the Upstart team accomplished all of this during the second year of a global pandemic, while operating in an almost entirely remote and distributed fashion. We moved to a digital-first strategy while simultaneously implementing what we call a vertical team working structure. This new approach is unlocking Upstart's ability to execute quickly and efficiently as a multiproduct company.

我想指出，Upstart 團隊在全球大流行的第二年完成了所有這一切，同時以幾乎完全遠程和分佈式的方式運作。我們轉向了數字優先戰略，同時實施了我們所謂的垂直團隊工作結構。這種新方法正在釋放 Upstart 作為一家多產品公司快速高效地執行的能力。

What's really exciting is that we're finding talent across the entire U.S. In fact, in Q4, more than 2/3 of our hires were made outside of our California and Ohio footprint. I cannot help but express my amazement for all the Upstart team accomplished in 2021, particularly given the circumstances under which they accomplished it. A sincere thank you to the entire Upstart team and also to the family and friends that support them.

真正令人興奮的是，我們正在整個美國尋找人才。事實上，在第四季度，我們超過 2/3 的員工來自加州和俄亥俄州以外的地區。我不禁對 Upstart 團隊在 2021 年取得的所有成就表示驚訝，特別是考慮到他們完成這些成就的環境。衷心感謝整個 Upstart 團隊以及支持他們的家人和朋友。

Now I would like to move on to 2022 and how we're thinking about the year ahead. We find ourselves today in the strongest position Upstart has experienced to date and it's our mission in 2022 to build on the many successes of the last year. At the beginning of each year, I'd like to clarify in my head and with the team, the handful of objectives Upstart needs to achieve to make the year an unqualified success.

現在我想進入 2022 年，以及我們對未來一年的看法。我們今天發現自己處於 Upstart 迄今為止所經歷的最強大的位置，我們在 2022 年的使命是在去年取得的許多成功的基礎上再接再厲。每年年初，我想在我的腦海中以及與團隊一起澄清，Upstart 需要實現的幾個目標才能使這一年取得圓滿成功。

Right at the top of the list for 2022 was achieving meaningful scale with auto lending on our platform. We believe in our core that AI lending isn't a one-category phenomenon, but will eventually transform virtually all flavors of credit. I'm happy to tell you that just 1.5 months into the new year, we've accomplished this goal. In fact, our auto refi funnel performance is now comparable to where our personal loan funnel was in 2019 on a channel-adjusted basis. Based on this progress, we now expect $1.5 billion in auto loan transactions on our platform in 2022.

2022 年排在首位的是我們平台上的汽車貸款實現了有意義的規模。我們相信我們的核心是，人工智能貸款不是一種單一的現象，但最終將改變幾乎所有類型的信貸。我很高興地告訴你，在新的一年剛過 1.5 個月，我們就實現了這個目標。事實上，在渠道調整的基礎上，我們的汽車再融資渠道表現現在與我們的個人貸款渠道在 2019 年的表現相當。基於這一進展，我們現在預計 2022 年我們平台上的汽車貸款交易將達到 15 億美元。

Just as importantly, we now have the confidence to invest the resources necessary to unleash the model and technology improvements in auto lending that made Upstart the category leader in personal lending. As I referenced earlier, this great leap forward was the product of an intense push by our auto team toward the end of Q4. There were many pieces and parts we needed to get right to enable a minimally efficient funnel and the team worked night and day right up to the holidays to make it happen.

同樣重要的是，我們現在有信心投入必要的資源來釋放汽車貸款的模式和技術改進，從而使 Upstart 成為個人貸款領域的領導者。正如我之前提到的，這一巨大的飛躍是我們汽車團隊在第四季度末大力推動的產物。為了實現最低效率的漏斗，我們需要做很多事情和部分，團隊夜以繼日地工作直到假期才實現。

It's worth stating that scaling the auto business from here is no simple task, more funnel and model improvements will be necessary, and distribution channels in auto refi aren't nearly as well established as they are in personal lending. But even though channel development will require significant time and effort, the good news is that we're confident we're in a class by ourselves.

值得一提的是，從這裡擴大汽車業務並非易事，需要更多的渠道和模型改進，而且汽車再融資的分銷渠道不如個人貸款那樣完善。但是，儘管渠道開發需要大量時間和精力，但好消息是我們有信心自己在課堂上。

Upstart has a unique and proprietary auto refinance product with far less competition than we've had in personal lending. In truth, if you don't have a certain level of funnel efficiency in auto refi, you really don't have a product. Today, we're confident that automotive lending is a category we can grow into for years to come.

Upstart 擁有獨特的專有汽車再融資產品，其競爭遠低於我們在個人貸款方面的競爭。事實上，如果你在汽車 refi 中沒有一定程度的漏斗效率，你就真的沒有產品。今天，我們相信汽車貸款是我們可以在未來幾年發展的一個類別。

We also continued to make rapid progress in the new product categories that I mentioned in our last earnings call: small dollar lending, small business lending and mortgage. In each case, we've established a core team and are making real progress toward entering the market. In the case of small dollar and small business lending, we expect to have these products in market during 2022. In the case of mortgage lending, we hope to be in market in 2023. In each case, we anticipate a year or so of development, a year of feeding and testing and then a year to begin scaling. A home run success for Upstart would amount to a new product in-market and ready to scale in each of the next 2 or 3 years.

我們還在我上次財報電話會議中提到的新產品類別中繼續取得快速進展：小額美元貸款、小企業貸款和抵押貸款。在每種情況下，我們都建立了一個核心團隊，並在進入市場方面取得了真正的進展。對於小額美元和小企業貸款，我們預計這些產品將在 2022 年上市。對於抵押貸款，我們希望在 2023 年上市。在每種情況下，我們預計會有一年左右的發展，一年的餵養和測試，然後一年開始縮放。 Upstart 的本壘打成功將相當於在市場上推出新產品，並準備在未來 2 或 3 年的每一年進行擴展。

Of course, it's very hard to time innovation, much less market adoption, but this is the pace we're aiming for. Overall, the categories we're in today or expect to enter represent an addressable market of more than $6 trillion in annual originations.

當然，很難為創新計時，更不用說市場採用了，但這是我們的目標。總體而言，我們今天或預計進入的類別代表了每年超過 6 萬億美元的潛在市場。

Upstart is now about the size that Google was when I joined that company in early 2004. So I've seen this movie before and hope to use what I learned there to build Upstart into the most impactful fintech in the world. I have some specific personal goals for Upstart in 2022. First, to transition into a multiproduct distributed company that can operate in parallel instead of in serial. Second, to break new ground in terms of quality of execution at the $1 billion-plus scale, with leaders such as Google, Amazon and Apple as my north star. And third, to move aggressively to unlock Upstart's addressable market while simultaneously upgrading our ability to pursue it. These challenges will keep our leadership team busy in 2022 and well beyond.

Upstart 現在的規模與我在 2004 年初加入 Google 時的規模差不多。所以我以前看過這部電影，並希望利用我在那裡學到的知識將 Upstart 打造成世界上最具影響力的金融科技公司。我在 2022 年為 Upstart 制定了一些具體的個人目標。首先，轉變為一家可以並行運營而不是串行運營的多產品分佈式公司。其次，在 10 億美元以上的規模上，以穀歌、亞馬遜和蘋果等領導者為我的北極星，在執行質量方面開闢新天地。第三，積極開拓 Upstart 的潛在市場，同時提升我們追求它的能力。這些挑戰將使我們的領導團隊在 2022 年及以後繼續忙碌。

Upstart is a unique company, both in terms of our technology and our business model. We don't exactly look like anybody else. And for this reason, we're often misunderstood. So in closing, I'd like to share a few thoughts about Upstart that have struck me in the last few months as useful ways to understand who we are and what we're building.

就我們的技術和商業模式而言，Upstart 是一家獨特的公司。我們看起來不像其他任何人。因此，我們經常被誤解。所以最後，我想分享一些關於 Upstart 的想法，這些想法在過去幾個月裡讓我印象深刻，作為了解我們是誰以及我們正在構建什麼的有用方法。

First, Upstart is both a consumer Internet brand as well as a cloud software provider, delivering a deeply proprietary and technical product to our bank and credit union partners. This combination is entirely unique and is central to our competitive position today and in the future. Were it not for the AI models at the core of Upstart, we would have little unique value to offer our bank partners. And were it not for our consumer presence and scale, we would not control our destiny, and our AI models would not be learning as quickly as they are. This combination means we can dramatically strengthen the competitive position of banks who partner with us, while simultaneously helping consumers find the very best credit product available for them.

首先，Upstart 既是消費者互聯網品牌，也是雲軟件提供商，為我們的銀行和信用合作夥伴提供深度專有的技術產品。這種組合是完全獨特的，是我們今天和未來競爭地位的核心。如果不是 Upstart 的核心 AI 模型，我們將無法為我們的銀行合作夥伴提供獨特的價值。如果不是因為我們的消費者存在和規模，我們將無法控制自己的命運，我們的 AI 模型也不會像它們一樣快速學習。這種結合意味著我們可以顯著加強與我們合作的銀行的競爭地位，同時幫助消費者找到最適合他們的信貸產品。

Second, choosing not to become a bank was the right decision for Upstart and it's central to our world view. A very successful bank will serve a particular slice of America incredibly well with a well-constructed portfolio of products, a trusted brand, durable relationships and a predictable business model. We believe we can help forward-thinking banks succeed in their mission with better technology.

其次，選擇不成為銀行是 Upstart 的正確決定，也是我們世界觀的核心。一家非常成功的銀行將通過精心構建的產品組合、值得信賴的品牌、持久的關係和可預測的商業模式，為美國的特定部分提供難以置信的服務。我們相信，我們可以幫助有遠見的銀行以更好的技術成功完成他們的使命。

We think of ourselves as a consumer Internet brand focused on personal finance. Unlike a bank, an Internet brand can seek to serve all Americans and eventually everyone in the world, this time, with an incredible diversity of offerings from hundreds, if not thousands of partners, each of whom will benefit from leveraging Upstart AI. So in short, our goal is to become a technology partner to all the world's great financial institutions. And through those partnerships, to enable the broadest array of financial products at the best price and with the best experience to everybody.

我們認為自己是一個專注於個人理財的消費互聯網品牌。與銀行不同，互聯網品牌可以尋求為所有美國人服務，最終服務於世界上的每個人，這一次，擁有數百甚至數千個合作夥伴提供的令人難以置信的多樣化產品，每個合作夥伴都將從利用 Upstart AI 中受益。簡而言之，我們的目標是成為世界上所有偉大金融機構的技術合作夥伴。並通過這些合作夥伴關係，以最優惠的價格為每個人提供最廣泛的金融產品和最佳體驗。

Finally, lending is a cyclical industry and always will be. Though Upstart is not a lender, we are a technology provider to this industry. So we expect our growth in transaction volumes to vary considerably from quarter-to-quarter. But at the same time, we represent a secular change that we believe is both inevitable and durable.

最後，貸款是一個週期性行業，而且永遠都是。儘管 Upstart 不是貸方，但我們是該行業的技術提供商。因此，我們預計我們的交易量增長將因季度而異。但與此同時，我們代表了一種我們認為既不可避免又持久的長期變化。

Our core thesis is that over a period of years, AI lending will rapidly gain market share over legacy approaches to credit and Upstart is in the pole position to benefit from that. In fact, economic volatility, such as we've seen in the last 2 years only serves to demonstrate the value of a modern AI-enabled approach to credit origination.

我們的核心論點是，在幾年的時間裡，人工智能貸款將迅速獲得超過傳統信貸方法的市場份額，而 Upstart 處於從中受益的領先地位。事實上，我們在過去 2 年中看到的經濟波動只是證明了現代人工智能支持的信貸發放方法的價值。

Thank you. And now I would like to turn it over to Sanjay, our Chief Financial Officer, to walk through our Q4 and full year 2021 financial results and guidance. Sanjay?

謝謝你。現在我想把它交給我們的首席財務官 Sanjay 來介紹我們的第四季度和 2021 年全年財務業績和指導。桑傑？

Thank you, Dave, and thanks to everyone for joining today. I hope everyone had an accretive Valentine's Day.

謝謝你，戴夫，也感謝大家今天加入。我希望每個人都度過了一個充實的情人節。

Quickly running through our results, starting at the top of the P&L. Net revenues in Q4 came in at $305 million, up 252% year-over-year. Revenue from fees constituted $287 million of that amount, representing 94% of overall revenue and up 37% sequentially from last quarter. The majority of our sequential growth came from additional top-of-funnel rate requests, which grew at 29% Q-on-Q. The balance of growth was driven by higher funnel conversion rates which were up 140 basis points or 6% relatively Q-on-Q despite the significant expansion in funnel traffic.

從損益表頂部開始快速瀏覽我們的結果。第四季度的淨收入為 3.05 億美元，同比增長 252%。費用收入佔該金額的 2.87 億美元，佔總收入的 94%，比上一季度環比增長 37%。我們的大部分連續增長來自額外的漏斗頂部費率請求，環比增長 29%。增長的平衡是由較高的漏斗轉化率推動的，儘管漏斗流量顯著增加，但該轉化率相對環比增長了 140 個基點或 6%。

The volume of loan transactions across our platform in Q4 was approximately 495,000 loans, up 301% year-over-year and representing over 400,000 new borrowers. This increase in volume is distinguished by participation across a widening swath of borrower segments, at one end of the spectrum, attracting growing numbers of applicants meeting the traditional definition of prime where we have historically not competed, at the other end, bringing more hidden prime borrowers into the lendable universe under the national bank rate cap as partner banks increasingly eliminate hard eligibility criteria, leading our models free to perform their magic. Accordingly, we scaled our marketing program spend in Q4 by 19% Q-on-Q while simultaneously improving loan unit economics.

第四季度我們平台上的貸款交易量約為 495,000 筆貸款，同比增長 301%，代表超過 400,000 名新借款人。這種數量的增加的特點是參與了越來越多的借款人群體，一方面，吸引越來越多的申請人滿足我們歷史上沒有競爭過的傳統優質定義，另一方面，帶來更多隱藏的優質隨著合作銀行越來越多地消除嚴格的資格標準，借款人進入國家銀行利率上限下的可貸領域，從而使我們的模型自由發揮其魔力。因此，我們將第四季度的營銷計劃支出環比增加了 19%，同時提高了貸款單位的經濟性。

Our contribution margin, a non-GAAP metric, which we define as revenue from fees minus variable costs for borrower acquisition, verification and servicing, consequently improved through this expansion, rising from 46% in Q3 to 52% in Q4. Our improved contribution margins versus Q3 reflect refinements we've made to our digital and direct-to-mail targeting models, take rate optimizations, improvements to life cycle marketing which drove a higher proportion of low-cost loans, and shrinking operations unit costs as our automation rate recovered to 70%.

我們的邊際貢獻是一個非公認會計準則指標，我們將其定義為費用收入減去借款人獲取、驗證和服務的可變成本，因此通過這種擴張得到改善，從第三季度的 46% 上升到第四季度的 52%。與第三季度相比，我們提高的邊際貢獻反映了我們對數字和直接郵件定位模型的改進、費率優化、生命週期營銷的改進，這推動了更高比例的低成本貸款，以及運營單位成本的縮減。我們的自動化率恢復到 70%。

Operating expenses in Q4 were $244 million, growing 22% sequentially over the prior quarter. Spend on engineering and product development once again led the way as our priority investment area, growing 25% sequentially despite slower hiring than desired. Growth in general and administrative spend registered at 22% sequentially as operating leverage continues to improve. Expenses in sales and marketing and customer operations, as always, grew in proportion to revenue, albeit in Q4, at a rate of increasing economy of scale.

第四季度的運營費用為 2.44 億美元，比上一季度環比增長 22%。工程和產品開發支出再次成為我們的優先投資領域，儘管招聘速度低於預期，但仍連續增長 25%。隨著經營槓桿的不斷提高，一般和行政支出環比增長 22%。與往常一樣，銷售和營銷以及客戶運營的費用與收入成正比增長，儘管在第四季度，規模經濟的增長速度。

Taken together, these components resulted in Q4 GAAP net income of $58.9 million, up 102% Q-on-Q and an adjusted EBITDA of $91 million, up 54% Q-on-Q. Adjusted earnings per share for Q4 was $0.89 based on a diluted weighted average share count of 98.8 million.

總而言之，這些組成部分導致第四季度 GAAP 淨收入為 5890 萬美元，環比增長 102%，調整後的 EBITDA 為 9100 萬美元，環比增長 54%。根據 9880 萬股的稀釋加權平均股數，第四季度調整後的每股收益為 0.89 美元。

On the full year scoreboard, we tallied $849 million in net revenue in 2021 which was a 264% growth clip over 2020, a contribution margin of 50%, up 400 basis points from the prior year, and adjusted EBITDA of $232 million, representing a 27% adjusted EBITDA margin versus 13% a year earlier. We ended the year with $1.2 billion in restricted and unrestricted cash, up from $311 million ending the prior year. Of the net increase, approximately $855 million was raised in the capital markets, $266 million was cash earned from operations net of loan transactions, and $170 million was reinvested back into our balance sheet in the form of loans made in support of new R&D programs.

在全年記分牌上，我們 2021 年的淨收入為 8.49 億美元，比 2020 年增長 264%，邊際貢獻率為 50%，比上年增加 400 個基點，調整後 EBITDA 為 2.32 億美元，相當於調整後 EBITDA 利潤率為 27%，而去年同期為 13%。我們以 12 億美元的受限和非受限現金結束了這一年，高於去年結束的 3.11 億美元。在淨增長中，大約 8.55 億美元是在資本市場籌集的，2.66 億美元是扣除貸款交易後的運營現金，還有 1.7 億美元以支持新研發項目的貸款的形式重新投資到我們的資產負債表中。

Consequently, our balance of loans, notes and residuals at the end of the year was $261 million, up from $140 million in Q3 and reflecting the accelerated pace of R&D. Most notably, auto lending has been funded since inception entirely from our own balance sheet. This is, as always, a temporary incubation period until we reach the point where the loans can be directed to our bank partners and institutional investors at reasonable scale, which we anticipate will begin to happen next quarter.

因此，我們在年底的貸款、票據和殘差餘額為 2.61 億美元，高於第三季度的 1.4 億美元，這反映了研發步伐的加快。最值得注意的是，自成立以來，汽車貸款的資金完全來自我們自己的資產負債表。與往常一樣，這是一個臨時的潛伏期，直到我們能夠以合理的規模將貸款定向給我們的銀行合作夥伴和機構投資者，我們預計這將在下個季度開始發生。

As we stare down the year ahead of us, we are cognizant of the fluidity in the macro environment. Over the past quarter, we have started to observe what we had long predicted, namely a reversal of the trajectory of default rates. Defaults have been at an unnaturally suppressed levels for more than a year. As we have consistently messaged, the fading of stimulus should presumably lead to a normalization in default rates. And as of November, we believe we are seeing that normalization.

當我們凝視未來的一年時，我們意識到宏觀環境的流動性。在過去的一個季度中，我們開始觀察我們長期以來的預測，即違約率軌蹟的逆轉。一年多來，違約率一直處於不自然的抑制水平。正如我們一直在傳達的那樣，刺激措施的消退可能會導致違約率正常化。截至 11 月，我們相信我們正在看到這種正常化。

As we, along with our bank partners, investors, have been anticipating this shift and as the loans on our platform have been priced accordingly, we are not expecting any meaningful adverse impact from rising defaults on our volumes or economics. Note that this recent upturn in loan default is not to be confused with the longer-term secular vintage-over-vintage increase in absolute default profile on our platform, which has been alluded to in some public forums. This phenomenon is almost purely a function of change in borrower mix as our models expand the frontiers of approvability and pull more applicants into the lendable universe over time.

由於我們與我們的銀行合作夥伴、投資者一直在期待這一轉變，並且我們平台上的貸款已相應定價，我們預計違約率上升不會對我們的交易量或經濟產生任何有意義的不利影響。請注意，不要將最近貸款違約的上升與我們平台上絕對違約情況的長期長期長期增長相混淆，這已在一些公共論壇中提到過。這種現象幾乎純粹是藉款人組合變化的函數，因為我們的模型擴大了審批範圍，並隨著時間的推移將更多申請人拉入可貸領域。

Viewed in this context, rising absolute default rates that are correctly predicted and priced are not a bug, but in fact, a feature of our platform and a trend we expect to see continue as we successfully progress against our core corporate mission of expanding access to credit.

在這種情況下，正確預測和定價的絕對違約率上升並不是一個錯誤，但事實上，我們平台的一個功能和我們期望看到的趨勢會繼續，因為我們成功實現了我們的核心企業使命，即擴大訪問信用。

A second macro topic de jure relates to rising interest rates and inflation. Our view is that a moderate increase in rates will not have a meaningful impact on our business for 2 reasons. An increase in the Fed rate does not translate directly into higher cost of funding for our bank partners. And to the extent it does, the floating rates on the credit cards that our loans are predominantly refinancing will move in tandem. This means that the savings that our borrower has realized, measured by the spread between our rates and the rates of the credit being refinanced, will remain reasonably constant. Any decrease in loan demand at the margin from borrowers reacting to higher nominal interest rates will be more than offset by the growing demand for credit in the broader economy as stimulus evaporates, as evidenced by recovering credit card balances.

法律上的第二個宏觀話題與利率上升和通貨膨脹有關。我們的觀點是，利率的適度上漲不會對我們的業務產生有意義的影響，原因有兩個。美聯儲加息並不會直接轉化為我們銀行合作夥伴的更高融資成本。在某種程度上，我們的貸款主要用於再融資的信用卡浮動利率將同步變化。這意味著我們的借款人已經實現的儲蓄（以我們的利率與再融資信貸利率之間的利差衡量）將保持合理不變。隨著刺激措施的消失，借款人對較高名義利率做出反應而導致的任何貸款需求下降將被更廣泛的經濟中不斷增長的信貸需求所抵消，這一點可以從信用卡餘額的恢復中得到證明。

As we look to Q1, we highlight the seasonal contraction we have historically observed between Q4 and Q1, which we have traditionally associated with tax refund season. While such seasonality has been attenuated more recently in the wake of COVID and the associated stimulus, we are expecting a return to the negative sequential pattern here in 2022.

當我們展望第一季度時，我們強調了我們在第四季度和第一季度之間歷史上觀察到的季節性收縮，我們傳統上將其與退稅季節聯繫在一起。儘管最近在 COVID 和相關刺激措施之後這種季節性有所減弱，但我們預計 2022 年將回到負連續模式。

With this as context, for Q1 of 2022, we are expecting revenues of $295 million to $305 million, representing a year-over-year growth rate of 148% at the midpoint; contribution margin of approximately 46%; net income of $18 million to $22 million; adjusted net income of $50 million to $52 million; adjusted EBITDA of $56 million to $58 million; and a diluted weighted average share count of approximately 95.9 million shares. For the full year 2022, we expect revenue of approximately $1.4 billion, representing a growth rate of approximately 65% from the prior year; contribution margin of approximately 45%; adjusted EBITDA of approximately 17%; and an auto loan transaction volume of approximately $1.5 billion.

以此為背景，我們預計 2022 年第一季度的收入為 2.95 億美元至 3.05 億美元，中點同比增長率為 148%；貢獻率約為 46%；淨收入 1800 萬至 2200 萬美元；調整後的淨收入為 5,000 萬美元至 5,200 萬美元；調整後的 EBITDA 為 5600 萬美元至 5800 萬美元；稀釋後的加權平均股數約為 9590 萬股。對於 2022 年全年，我們預計收入約為 14 億美元，較上年增長約 65%；貢獻率約為 45%；調整後 EBITDA 約為 17%；汽車貸款交易額約為 15 億美元。

It is worth highlighting that the decrease in contribution and EBITDA margins we are guiding for 2022 relative to 2021 is intentional and controllable and largely a function of 2 levers. One, the speed of the ramp-up in auto lending, which will reduce our overall contribution margin by about 5 percentage points until it attains mature scale in operations and customer acquisition; and two, the objective of growing our technical workforce by around 150% this year, which we view to be the most lucrative reinvestment opportunity for our corporate profits. Obviously, either or both of these investment decisions remain at our discretion and are susceptible to being revisited should any changes in our financial trajectory warrant it.

值得強調的是，我們指導的 2022 年貢獻和 EBITDA 利潤率相對於 2021 年的下降是有意和可控的，主要是兩個槓桿的函數。一是車貸增速加快，在運營和獲客方面達到成熟規模之前，我們的整體貢獻率將下降約5個百分點；第二，今年將我們的技術人員增加約 150% 的目標，我們認為這是我們公司利潤最有利可圖的再投資機會。顯然，這些投資決策中的一個或兩個仍然由我們自行決定，並且如果我們的財務軌跡發生任何變化，很容易被重新審視。

Before I turn it over to Q&A, I want to highlight as a final note that we recently announced the authorization from our Board of Directors to repurchase up to $400 million of Upstart shares. With the volatility in the trading of our stock, we have seen what we believe to be attractive buying conditions at various times over the past year, and our profitability puts us in a position to be able to initiate this program and take advantage of those situations on behalf of our shareholders.

在我將其轉至問答環節之前，我想最後強調一下，我們最近宣布董事會授權回購高達 4 億美元的 Upstart 股票。隨著我們股票交易的波動，我們在過去一年的不同時間看到了我們認為具有吸引力的購買條件，我們的盈利能力使我們能夠啟動該計劃並利用這些情況代表我們的股東。

Our thanks once again to all the talented Upstarters who are helping to build this company. And with that, Dave and I are now happy to open the call to any questions. Operator, back to you.

我們再次感謝所有幫助建立這家公司的才華橫溢的新貴。有了這個，戴夫和我現在很高興打開電話詢問任何問題。接線員，還給你。

(Operator Instructions) And we'll take our first question from Simon Clinch with Atlantic Equities.

（操作員說明）我們將向大西洋股票的 Simon Clinch 提出第一個問題。

So first of all, congratulations on a very strong quarter. And I'm really interested in the economics of the auto business. I was wondering if you could perhaps walk us through sort of how the revenue model is going to work and how it perhaps differs or will differ in terms of the P&L impact as we roll it through from loan assumptions.

首先，祝賀一個非常強勁的季度。我對汽車行業的經濟學非常感興趣。我想知道您是否可以向我們介紹一下收入模型將如何運作，以及當我們從貸款假設中滾動時，它在損益影響方面可能有何不同或將有所不同。

Simon, great to hear from you. So auto economics, I think I would say we're not yet at the point where we're ready to give a precise view on auto unit economics for the simple reason that almost all of the loans to date have been staying on our balance sheet. So currently, we're earning net interest income off of those loans, which is obviously not our core model. At some point, those loans will start to make their way to banks and investors. As I said in the prior remarks, we anticipate that happening over the next quarter or so.

西蒙，很高興收到你的來信。所以汽車經濟學，我想我會說我們還沒有準備好對汽車單位經濟學給出準確的看法，原因很簡單，迄今為止幾乎所有的貸款都留在我們的資產負債表上.所以目前，我們從這些貸款中賺取淨利息收入，這顯然不是我們的核心模式。在某個時候，這些貸款將開始流向銀行和投資者。正如我在之前的評論中所說，我們預計這會在下個季度左右發生。

And when that happens, we'll begin to pivot to a fee model that's more akin to our core business model, but that's still in front of us. And then on the cost side, consumer acquisition and operations are still things that are -- I would call them subscale. So we have targets for where we want them to get to, but not actual results yet. So taken all together, we don't have precise guidance for you. I guess what I would say as a general statement is that the overall take rate that we earn over the life of an auto loan, we anticipate at scale to be in the same ballpark to what we earn on personal loans.

當這種情況發生時，我們將開始轉向一種更類似於我們的核心業務模式的收費模式，但這仍然擺在我們面前。然後在成本方面，消費者獲取和運營仍然是——我稱之為子規模。所以我們有我們希望他們到達的目標，但還沒有實際結果。綜上所述，我們無法為您提供準確的指導。我想作為一般性陳述，我想說的是，我們在汽車貸款的整個生命週期中獲得的總體利率，我們預計在規模上與我們從個人貸款中獲得的收入處於同一水平。

I suspect less of it will be upfront on transaction and maybe more earned ratably over the life of the loan. But that's what we expect to grow into as we scale. But as I said, we're sort of not yet in that model where we can give you actual guidance yet.

我懷疑交易中的前期費用會減少，而在貸款期限內可能會獲得更多的收益。但這就是我們期望隨著我們的擴展而成長的東西。但正如我所說，我們還沒有進入那種可以為您提供實際指導的模型。

Okay. Great. Just a follow up on that as well. In terms of your rooftop expansion, could you talk about the pace at which you can expand and sort of what, I guess, the -- where you think you might end up to in this year? Or what kind of bottlenecks you might be experiencing, what the challenges are in actually ramping that up rapidly?

好的。偉大的。也只是跟進一下。關於你的屋頂擴張，你能談談你可以擴張的速度嗎？我猜，你認為今年你可能會達到什麼程度？或者您可能會遇到什麼樣的瓶頸，實際上快速提升的挑戰是什麼？

Simon, this is Dave. Yes. I mean, it's not a specific number we're giving guidance on. I would say, generally, if you looked at the numbers, and you can see them in the investment deck, we did see acceleration in the fourth quarter, which is nice. We actually rebranded from Prodigy to Upstart Auto Retail in the third quarter. So it was nice to see that, that didn't cause any disruption. In fact, it was an acceleration in Q4.

西蒙，這是戴夫。是的。我的意思是，這不是我們提供指導的具體數字。我想說，一般來說，如果你看一下這些數字，你可以在投資板塊中看到它們，我們確實在第四季度看到了加速，這很好。我們實際上在第三季度從 Prodigy 更名為 Upstart Auto Retail。所以很高興看到這一點，這並沒有造成任何干擾。事實上，這是第四季度的加速。

I think generally, the biggest challenge for auto retail at the moment is the supply chain that car manufacturers and the auto industry overall is seeing, meaning it can be challenging to sell software to a dealership that helps them sell more cars when they don't have enough cars to sell in the first place. But despite that and despite that headwind that we're selling into, as you can see, we are expanding pretty rapidly.

我認為一般來說，目前汽車零售面臨的最大挑戰是汽車製造商和整個汽車行業所看到的供應鏈，這意味著向經銷商銷售軟件以幫助他們銷售更多汽車時可能具有挑戰性。首先有足夠的汽車可以出售。但儘管如此，儘管我們正在銷售逆風，如你所見，我們正在迅速擴張。

So our expectation is we'll see rapid acceleration of that over the year. Certainly, as supply chains sort of repair themselves and inventory levels on car dealerships, et cetera, begin to sort of return to normal, we think that will be a tailwind that will just further accelerate. So we're really pleased with the progress and we think we would expect to continue to accelerate adoption across rooftops through this year.

因此，我們的期望是，我們將看到這一年的快速加速。當然，隨著供應鏈的自我修復和汽車經銷商等的庫存水平開始恢復正常，我們認為這將是一個進一步加速的順風。因此，我們對取得的進展感到非常滿意，我們認為我們預計今年將繼續加速屋頂的採用。

Next, we'll take from Pete Christiansen with Citi.

接下來，我們將從花旗的 Pete Christiansen 那裡獲得。

Impressive results. Dave, I know last quarter, you talked about expanding your credit -- your target credits in both directions, both prime and more towards the lower end. Just wondering, how do you see yourself performing more towards the prime end where cost of capital is more of a competitive edge there? Are you seeing headway in that particular area? And where do you see your -- Upstart's competitive advantage?

令人印象深刻的結果。戴夫，我知道上個季度，你談到了擴大你的信用——你在兩個方向上的目標信用，無論是主要的還是更多的低端。只是想知道，您如何看待自己在資本成本更具競爭優勢的黃金端表現得更好？您是否看到該特定領域的進展？你在哪裡看到你的——Upstart 的競爭優勢？

Yes, Pete, thanks for the question. We're definitely making pretty quick progress into the primary end of the market, which has historically not been a place where we had a lot of presence. I think it has been reliant on us bringing bank partners on board who have depository funding, the sort of cost of funding that can compete for those borrowers. And that's really what's seen us begin to make headway there. So I think all else being equal, the sort of winner in any particular segment in the market is going to be a combination of the cost of funding available and then the quality of the model. And the higher -- the more you get into the primary segment, the cost of funding becomes more dominant, but still ability to model better, having a more efficient process, not asking people for documents, instant approvals. Those are all things that are helping us win in the primary end of the market.

是的，皮特，謝謝你的提問。我們肯定在進入市場的初級端取得了相當快的進展，這在歷史上並不是我們有很多存在的地方。我認為這一直依賴於我們讓擁有存款資金的銀行合作夥伴加入，這種融資成本可以與那些借款人競爭。這就是我們開始在那裡取得進展的真正原因。所以我認為在其他條件相同的情況下，市場上任何特定領域的贏家都將是可用資金成本和模型質量的結合。並且越高 - 你進入主要部分的次數越多，資金成本就變得更加重要，但仍然能夠更好地建模，擁有更有效的流程，不要求人們提供文件，即時批准。這些都是幫助我們在初級市場中獲勝的因素。

Also, the truth about a lot of marketing isn't as targeted as you'd like, meaning you can't always target a specific part of this credit spectrum, if you will, in marketing. And that means it's very important to be competitive across as much of that spectrum as you can because it allows you to do more broad-based marketing. And that's really what we're seeing as well. We're seeing really great progress in digital, other channels that aren't nearly as targeted as you might see elsewhere and being competitive in prime is really helpful for us because it allows us to use those types of marketing channels.

此外，很多營銷的真相並不像你想要的那樣有針對性，這意味著你不能總是針對這個信用範圍的特定部分，如果你願意的話，在營銷中。這意味著在盡可能多的範圍內保持競爭力非常重要，因為它可以讓您進行更廣泛的營銷。這也是我們所看到的。我們看到在數字化方面取得了巨大的進步，其他渠道的針對性並不像您在其他地方看到的那樣具有競爭力，並且在黃金市場上具有競爭力對我們非常有幫助，因為它使我們能夠使用這些類型的營銷渠道。

That's helpful. And then I'm just thinking about your rate requests which were super impressive, I think, up 30% sequentially by my math. It seems like you are grabbing more eyeballs. Can you just explain a bit where -- what marketing strategies you've expanded upon to drive increased eyeballs to the Upstart platform? Where are you seeing greater success? Is this still in the affiliate marketing channel? Are you seeing more of a pickup in direct, that sort of thing? And then I'll get back into queue.

這很有幫助。然後我只是在考慮您的費率要求，我認為這非常令人印象深刻，按我的數學計算，按順序增長了 30%。看起來你正在吸引更多的眼球。您能否解釋一下，您擴展了哪些營銷策略以吸引更多人關注 Upstart 平台？您在哪裡看到更大的成功？這還在聯盟營銷渠道中嗎？您是否看到更多的直接提貨，諸如此類的事情？然後我會回到隊列中。

I would say it was generally very broad-based. We saw improvements across every channel and in pretty significant ones. Affiliate channels continue to grow. As I mentioned, digital has been very successful. We saw -- in the fourth quarter, we had unprecedented performance in direct mail, which has always been an important channel for us. And then also very fast growth in kind of organic users, which also, part of which are repeat borrowers, so that's also growing very quickly as we're kind of ramping up our life cycle marketing efforts. So I don't think it was any single channel. It really was very broad-based, and we think there's a lot of upside in all these channels going forward.

我會說它通常是非常廣泛的。我們看到每個渠道以及非常重要的渠道都有改進。附屬渠道繼續增長。正如我所提到的，數字化已經非常成功。我們看到——在第四季度，我們在直郵方面取得了前所未有的表現，直郵一直是我們的重要渠道。然後自然用戶的增長也非常快，其中一部分是重複借款人，所以隨著我們加大生命週期營銷力度，這種增長也非常快。所以我不認為這是任何單一渠道。它的基礎非常廣泛，我們認為所有這些渠道在未來都有很大的優勢。

We'll move on to Arvind Ramnani with Piper Sandler.

我們將繼續與 Piper Sandler 一起討論 Arvind Ramnani。

Another terrific quarter. Just a couple of questions on my end. Can you talk about some of the pricing dynamics with your partners? And given some of the normalization of consumer credit and sort of the impact you're going to see on the business.

另一個了不起的季度。我這邊只有幾個問題。你能和你的合作夥伴談談一些定價動態嗎？考慮到消費者信貸的一些正常化以及你將看到的對業務的影響。

Sure. So the way to think about it is we have prices we charge to our bank partners, and those are costs that they absorb. But in terms of their pricing, the return targets that they are expecting in their loan portfolios and their loan programs, those are parameters that they control. So if for whatever reason, they decide they need a higher return on asset for any particular part of the risk spectrum, they can dial that up anytime they want. And that will result at the margins at a higher price to the consumer.

當然。因此，考慮它的方式是我們向銀行合作夥伴收取價格，這些是他們吸收的成本。但就他們的定價、他們在貸款組合和貸款計劃中所期望的回報目標而言，這些都是他們控制的參數。因此，如果出於某種原因，他們決定在風險範圍的任何特定部分需要更高的資產回報率，他們可以隨時調高。這將為消費者帶來更高的價格。

So these are the kind of dynamics that the 40-plus banks and credit unions in our platform have available to them and can make decisions on their own. And as usual, they're trading off things like profitability, risk, volume, these are all sort of ways they can turn the dials to optimize the program for their business needs in the moment. So that's the long and the short of it. These aren't -- we're not changing our price to banks based on -- what we charge to banks is not really a function of interest rates out there, anything of that nature. But what the consumer -- the price the consumers may experience on our platform certainly are a result of what our bank partners are choosing to do in the market.

因此，這些是我們平台中的 40 多家銀行和信用合作社提供給他們的那種動態，並且可以自行做出決定。和往常一樣，他們在權衡諸如盈利能力、風險、數量之類的東西，這些都是他們可以轉動錶盤來優化程序以滿足他們當前業務需求的各種方式。這就是它的長處和短處。這些不是——我們不會根據銀行改變我們的價格——我們向銀行收取的費用並不是真正的利率函數，任何那種性質的東西。但是消費者——消費者可能在我們的平台上體驗到的價格肯定是我們的銀行合作夥伴選擇在市場上做的事情的結果。

Terrific. And are you able to give us any color on sort of your kind of take rate, overall take rate as the year progressed? Just trying to figure out like, has it been trending upwards or has it been kind of flat through the year?

了不起。你能否給我們任何關於你的接受率的顏色，隨著時間的推移，整體的接受率？只是想弄清楚，它是呈上升趨勢還是全年持平？

Arvind, this is Sanjay. So take rates, I don't think there's maybe sort of one generalization we can say about the trend. They do go up and down as a function of other things. Mix is one example of things that will change the overall take rate on the platform. More generally, I guess I would say this like when our models get better, it can result in one of 2 things. On the one hand, rates can get lowered for the borrowers and then volume increases. So that's sort of one outcome. And then there's another possibility, which is that the lower rates to borrowers are offset by higher take rates. And so our value manifests through a higher take rate.

阿文德，這是桑傑。所以拿利率來說，我認為我們不能對這種趨勢做出某種概括。它們確實會隨著其他事物的變化而上升和下降。 Mix 是改變平台整體使用率的一個例子。更一般地說，我想我會這樣說，當我們的模型變得更好時，它可能會導致兩件事之一。一方面，借款人的利率可能會降低，然後交易量會增加。所以這是一種結果。然後還有另一種可能性，即較低的借款人利率被較高的利率抵消。因此，我們的價值體現在更高的採用率上。

And which one of those 2 it is in any particular segment, sort of depends on how elastic the demand for our loan is. So if small changes in APRs can result in large changes in volume, then that's a great outcome for us. In some segments, our rates are getting to the point where they're already so much lower than the market that lowering them further doesn't really change the borrower's propensity to take the loan and then so more of our value capture ends up materializing its take rate. And so depending on which segments are growing because each one has sort of a different elasticity profile, some can sort of result in value as their models improve through the volume and others through take rate. It's a bit hard to sort of generalize the trend overall in the platform now.

在任何特定細分市場中，這兩者中的哪一個在某種程度上取決於我們貸款需求的彈性。因此，如果 APR 的微小變化可以導致數量的巨大變化，那麼這對我們來說是一個很好的結果。在某些領域，我們的利率已經達到了比市場低得多的水平，進一步降低利率並不能真正改變借款人接受貸款的傾向，因此我們更多的價值捕獲最終實現了它採取率。因此，取決於哪些細分市場正在增長，因為每個細分市場都有不同的彈性曲線，一些可能會產生價值，因為他們的模型會通過數量提高，而另一些則通過採用率提高。現在有點難以概括平台中的整體趨勢。

Terrific. If I could squeeze 1 last in. Certainly, on the EBITDA compression, you provided some color in your prepared remarks on ramp-up in auto and hiring in tech. But if you think of like first one, 12 months from now, what do you think may drive kind of upside? I mean, certainly, you have to invest in auto and you're going to have hire tech folks. But is there any levers you have in place that can drive some upside in EBITDA margins?

了不起。如果我能把 1 擠到最後。當然，在 EBITDA 壓縮方面，你在準備好的關於汽車加速發展和技術招聘的評論中提供了一些色彩。但是，如果您考慮第一個，從現在開始的 12 個月，您認為什麼可能會推動上漲？我的意思是，當然，你必須投資汽車，而且你會僱傭技術人員。但是，您是否有任何可以推動 EBITDA 利潤率上升的槓桿？

Yes, absolutely. And I would think that if you think about the auto business itself, it's going to go through a cycle much like the personal loan business did where in the early days you're ramping, you're developing your sort of acquisition programs. They're not quite at scale. Your operations are not finely tuned. And so in the early days of our personal loans, if you look back to our corporate history, we had a lower level of profitability. And as that business scaled, it started accreting pretty directly to the bottom line.

是的，一點沒錯。而且我認為，如果您考慮汽車業務本身，它將經歷一個週期，就像個人貸款業務一樣，在早期您正在加速發展，您正在開發自己的收購計劃。它們的規模並不大。您的操作沒有經過微調。所以在我們個人貸款的早期，如果你回顧我們的公司歷史，我們的盈利水平較低。隨著業務規模的擴大，它開始直接增加利潤。

And I -- we believe that auto is going to go through a similar cycle, maybe a more accelerated one because we know the playbook now. But as it is today, where we're starting to achieve meaningful volume, our attacks are not as efficient as they're in personal lending. Our operations unit costs are not as efficient as they are in personal lending, but they will get there. And as the models get better, the conversion funnel improves. All of the things that happened to our personal and business, we anticipate will happen on the auto business. And so whereas in 2022, it will be maybe a bit sort of dilutive to our contribution margins. At scale and at maturity, we think that it will have the same sort of profitability profile as our core business today.

而且我 - 我們相信汽車將經歷一個類似的周期，也許是一個更快的周期，因為我們現在知道了劇本。但就像今天一樣，我們開始實現有意義的交易量，我們的攻擊並不像他們在個人借貸中那樣有效。我們的運營單位成本不像個人貸款那樣有效，但它們會達到目標。隨著模型變得更好，轉化漏斗也得到改善。我們預計發生在我們個人和業務上的所有事情都會發生在汽車業務上。因此，儘管在 2022 年，它可能會稍微稀釋我們的邊際貢獻。在規模和成熟度上，我們認為它將具有與我們今天的核心業務相同的盈利能力。

So that's just something -- I think we're sort of like incubating new businesses as we go. Dave sort of alluded to a pace of -- you don't want to read 6 to 12 months of new business, and it will go through an investment cycle. But as we get more and more in our portfolio, that have matured and are sort of now "cash cows," I think that the natural profitability of the overall model will just kind of trend to its equilibrium direction, which we believe is higher than where it is today.

所以這只是一些東西——我認為我們有點像在孵化新業務。戴夫有點暗示——你不想閱讀 6 到 12 個月的新業務，它會經歷一個投資週期。但隨著我們的投資組合越來越多，它們已經成熟並且現在有點像“搖錢樹”，我認為整個模型的自然盈利能力將趨向於它的均衡方向，我們認為它高於今天在哪裡。

We'll take our next question from Ramsey El-Assal with Barclays.

我們將向巴克萊銀行的 Ramsey El-Assal 提出我們的下一個問題。

I was wondering if you could share your early thoughts on the distribution strategy for the new products you'll be rolling out. Obviously, Prodigy really helps with auto. But should we also expect to see Karma -- Credit Karma or other large distribution partners sort of playing a role in auto and also in these other new categories?

我想知道您是否可以分享您對即將推出的新產品的分銷策略的早期想法。顯然，Prodigy 確實對汽車有幫助。但我們是否也應該期待看到 Karma——Credit Karma 或其他大型分銷合作夥伴在汽車以及這些其他新類別中發揮作用？

Ramsey, this is Dave. I think each of the products are very different in the nature of the channel development, I think we'll be pretty unique to them. So we will certainly use the relationships and the expertise we have. For example, small business. There's no doubt that, in our view, direct mail will be important to that. And we have what we would consider to be pretty exceptional skills in direct mail. There are some affiliate-type partners or aggregators in small business, probably not at the scale that some of them are in personal lending.

拉姆齊，這是戴夫。我認為每種產品在渠道開發的性質上都非常不同，我認為我們對它們來說將是非常獨特的。所以我們肯定會利用我們擁有的關係和專業知識。例如，小型企業。毫無疑問，在我們看來，直郵將對此很重要。我們擁有我們認為在直郵方面非常出色的技能。小型企業中有一些附屬類型的合作夥伴或聚合器，可能沒有他們中的一些在個人貸款方面的規模。

And likewise, in auto, auto, clearly, direct mail is a great channel. It's already proving to be the first channel that's really taking off for us in auto. And there are some aggregators, but again, not as much a single point scale as we see elsewhere. So they're all different. But I think in almost every case, the channels that we have some footprint in today in personal lending will be meaningful probably with different weightings, if you will. And I think we'll see a lot more diversity.

同樣，在汽車行業，汽車行業，很明顯，直郵是一個很好的渠道。它已經被證明是我們在汽車領域真正起飛的第一個渠道。並且有一些聚合器，但同樣，不像我們在其他地方看到的那樣多單點量表。所以他們都是不同的。但我認為，幾乎在每一種情況下，我們今天在個人貸款方面所涉足的渠道都可能具有不同的權重，如果你願意的話。我認為我們會看到更多的多樣性。

And probably as important as anything is as we add subsequent channels, being able to cross-sell is going to be really important to us as well, and that becomes quite accretive to us. So it's a different -- sort of again, varies a lot by product. We love the partners that we have and would love to work with them on more products as we bring them to market and definitely anticipate doing that.

可能與我們添加後續渠道一樣重要，能夠交叉銷售對我們也非常重要，這對我們來說變得非常重要。所以這是一個不同的 - 再次，因產品而異。我們喜歡我們擁有的合作夥伴，並且願意與他們合作開發更多產品，因為我們將它們推向市場並且肯定會這樣做。

Great. I know it's early days. So I appreciate your read on that. I also wanted to follow up here with a question on the repurchase authorization. It's unusual to see a company -- you guys are so solidly in growth mode, it's unusually to see that sort of in the capital allocation mix. How should we interpret that? Is this more a sign that you're -- you just feel that the share price is undervalued and you want to signal that to the market? Or is there a decreased likelihood of capital allocation in other directions like M&A coming on the back of that?

偉大的。我知道現在還為時尚早。所以我很欣賞你的閱讀。我也想在這裡跟進一個關於回購授權的問題。看到一家公司很不尋常——你們的增長模式如此穩固，在資本配置組合中看到這種情況也很不尋常。我們應該如何解釋它？這是否更多地表明你是——你只是覺得股價被低估了，你想向市場發出信號？或者，在併購等其他方向上的資本配置的可能性是否會因此而降低？

Yes, Ramsey, this is Sanjay. Thanks for the question. Yes, I would say, importantly, we have not run out of things to do by any stretch. As you know, we're growing quickly and hiring a lot. So this isn't a capital structuring decision, it's economic opportunism. And it's really a function of 2 things that are somewhat unique at our stage. First of all, well, one of them is the volatility of our stock is well known. You've sort of seen it over the past year. And look, there's -- we have a conviction that there's just been numerous instances over the past year, where knowing what we know about our business and our opportunity, we are of the opinion that it's been undervalued.

是的，拉姆齊，這是桑傑。謝謝你的問題。是的，我想說的是，重要的是，我們無論如何都沒有無事可做。如您所知，我們正在迅速發展並招聘了很多人。因此，這不是資本結構決策，而是經濟機會主義。它實際上是我們這個階段有些獨特的兩件事的功能。首先，好吧，其中之一就是我們股票的波動性是眾所周知的。在過去的一年裡，你已經看到了它。看，有 - 我們堅信，在過去的一年中，有很多例子，我們知道我們對我們的業務和機會的了解，我們認為它被低估了。

And then the second component is we are actually profitable. So because of that sort of -- sort of unique sort of feature, we have the actual ability to take advantage of that conviction on behalf of our shareholders. So it is opportunistic, and I think that as the volatility in our stock continues, we'll watch it, and we'll be in a position to take advantage of that aspect. But it's not really a conviction around returning capital to shareholders as much as it is taking advantage of the volatility of the stock and the profitability we have as a business model already.

然後第二個組成部分是我們實際上是盈利的。因此，由於這種獨特的特徵，我們有能力代表我們的股東利用這種信念。所以這是機會主義的，我認為隨著我們股票的持續波動，我們會關注它，我們將能夠利用這一方面。但這並不是真正將資本返還給股東的信念，而是利用股票的波動性和我們作為商業模式已經擁有的盈利能力。

Next, we'll move on to Andrew Boone with JMP Securities.

接下來，我們將繼續討論 JMP 證券公司的 Andrew Boone。

I wanted to go first to default rates. So Sanjay, I think you talked about it being a feature, not a bug. But can you just give us a little bit more detail? Can you provide any incremental just pieces of data to give us more confidence there, talk about cohorts or anything else to just give us a little bit more confidence.

我想先討論違約率。所以Sanjay，我想你說它是一個特性，而不是一個錯誤。但是你能不能給我們更多的細節？您能否提供任何增量數據，讓我們在那裡更有信心，談論群組或其他任何事情，讓我們更有信心。

Yes, Andrew. So I guess I was just trying to maybe draw a distinction between 2 different things that often get conflated. One of them, which is talked about a lot is -- it is the fact with each successive vintage that's originated on our platforms, the absolute level of delinquency default goes up, and that's reflected in our securitizations. And so the first point I was making was that's, in our view, not a bad thing. It's happening because we are expanding our universe of approval of borrowers over time.

是的，安德魯。所以我想我只是想區分兩種經常被混為一談的不同事物。其中一個經常被談論的是——事實上，每一個連續的年份都起源於我們的平台，違約違約的絕對水平上升，這反映在我們的證券化中。所以我要說的第一點是，在我們看來，這不是一件壞事。這是因為隨著時間的推移，我們正在擴大對借款人的批准範圍。

And any time you go from a situation where you have a small amount of data and you're acting conservatively, over time, having a lot more data and then relaxing your constraints around risk, then your average delinquencies will rise just mathematically. And as long as you're predicting that correctly and pricing the loans accordingly, our view is that this is a good thing. So in fact, I would say it's maybe the best single distillation of our entire history of success in corporate value creation as a platform, right? Like that's what we're doing. We're expanding the frontiers of approvability and making the universe bigger, whereas we started from a position that was more conservative.

任何時候，當您從擁有少量數據的情況下採取保守行動時，隨著時間的推移，擁有更多數據，然後放寬對風險的限制，那麼您的平均拖欠率只會在數學上上升。只要您正確預測並相應地為貸款定價，我們的觀點是這是一件好事。所以事實上，我想說這可能是我們在作為一個平台創造企業價值的整個成功歷史中最好的一次昇華，對吧？就像我們正在做的那樣。我們正在擴大可認可的邊界並使宇宙更大，而我們從一個更保守的位置開始。

So I would say like put that aside. So that's one thing that's happening, but that's just sort of a reflection of our business journey. But the second point, which is different, but equally about the delinquencies is that if you imagine that sort of delinquencies by vintage, which -- where each vintage has a higher delinquency than the last, it is a true statement that every single one of those individual data points is lower than where we had expected it to be.

所以我想說把它放在一邊。所以這是正在發生的一件事，但這只是我們業務旅程的反映。但第二點是不同的，但同樣與拖欠有關的是，如果您按年份想像這種拖欠，其中每個年份的拖欠率都高於上一個年份，這是一個真實的陳述，即每一個年份這些單獨的數據點低於我們的預期。

Now that's a statement that's equally true about all vintages and equal in magnitude about all vintages. And we are -- we have been of the belief that, that's because of the stimulus and the economy. And we've been consistently messaging that we have been predicting that, that would revert at some point and those little dots would return to the sort of position where we originally expected them to be.

這是一個對所有年份都同樣正確的陳述，並且對所有年份的重要性都相同。而且我們 - 我們一直相信，這是因為刺激和經濟。我們一直在傳達我們一直在預測的信息，這會在某個時候恢復，那些小點會回到我們最初預期它們的位置。

And lo and behold, since October or November, each of those vintage curves is now reverting back to where we expected. So this is something that's more of a local phenomenon. It's not just about the secular vintage-over-vintage profile of our business, but it's more about each individual vintage returning to a higher level of default. But the fact that we had been sort of predicting it for more than a year, and seeing it finally materialize separately is not a huge impact to our business.

你瞧，自 10 月或 11 月以來，每條老式曲線現在都恢復到我們預期的位置。所以這更像是一種局部現象。這不僅僅是關於我們業務的世俗年份，而是更多關於每個年份回歸到更高水平的默認值。但事實上，我們已經預測了一年多，並看到它最終單獨實現，這對我們的業務並沒有太大的影響。

If you are in some temporary suspended state of abnormality, as long as you don't delude yourself into thinking that that's the new normal, the eventual resumption of normalization shouldn't be a big surprise. And so we're going through that shift, but that's something that is new as of October or November. It's not sort of a longer-term sort of increase in default profile, which I was just reacting, too, because we see it discussed a lot in the public forum. So we thought it was worth clarifying.

如果您處於某種暫時暫停的異常狀態，只要您不自欺欺人地認為這是新常態，最終恢復常態應該不足為奇。所以我們正在經歷這種轉變，但這是 10 月或 11 月的新事物。這不是默認配置文件的長期增加，我也只是對此做出反應，因為我們看到它在公共論壇上討論了很多。所以我們認為值得澄清。

Great. That's helpful. And then my second question is just on the $1.5 billion auto goal. Can you just help us understand the potential upside as well as downside, like where would that be higher? And why might that be lower as we think about that goal for 2022?

偉大的。這很有幫助。然後我的第二個問題是關於 15 億美元的汽車目標。你能不能幫助我們了解潛在的上行和下行，比如哪裡會更高？當我們考慮到 2022 年的目標時，為什麼這個數字會更低？

Sure. Well, look, obviously, it's early in the year, and we have sort of achieved lift off, if you will, with auto. So that's why we feel comfortable presenting that number. But we have a long way to go, and it certainly depends on us continuing to make progress through the year. So there are certainly scenarios where it could be better than that and some where we would be less than that. And that's our best view as to what we have sitting here in February.

當然。好吧，看，顯然，現在是年初，如果你願意的話，我們已經實現了汽車的起飛。所以這就是為什麼我們願意提供這個數字。但我們還有很長的路要走，這當然取決於我們在這一年中繼續取得進展。因此，在某些情況下它可能會比這更好，而在某些情況下我們會比這更好。這是我們對二月份坐在這裡的最佳看法。

But just like in the personal loan world, for us, it comes down to our models improving as quickly as possible, us for moving friction, us getting better at finding distribution channels and acquisition channels, getting better at cross-selling. So there's probably 7 or 8 key inputs to that formula of how good does that business look come December. And certainly, it is one of the most central areas of focus for the company in 2022. And I guess we're just sharing that we have enough confidence to put a real number out there, a meaningful number and we're going to go to work and take that business as far as we can this year.

但就像在個人貸款領域一樣，對我們來說，這歸結為我們的模型盡快改進，我們為了移動摩擦，我們在尋找分銷渠道和獲取渠道方面做得更好，在交叉銷售方面做得更好。因此，該業務在 12 月份看起來有多好的公式可能有 7 或 8 個關鍵輸入。當然，這是公司 2022 年最核心的關注領域之一。我想我們只是在分享，我們有足夠的信心把一個真實的數字放在那裡，一個有意義的數字，我們會去的今年我們將盡可能地努力工作並開展這項業務。

But we're optimistic and we're just really excited because there's a certain threshold you cross where it becomes real and viable and there was a time when we really needed 50%, 100% improvements to the funnel in order to really have this thing start to scale. And now we've done that, and we can sort of get to the place where we can get much smaller wins one at a time to really grow from here. And that feels like what personal loans felt like just a couple of years ago. In fact, one of the points we made is that our auto funnel today looks much like what the personal loan funnel look like in 2019. And that obviously was the beginning of a lot of growth. So that's what gives us some confidence in that market.

但我們很樂觀，我們真的很興奮，因為你跨越了一定的門檻，它變得真實可行，曾經有一段時間我們真的需要對漏斗進行 50%、100% 的改進才能真正擁有這個東西開始規模化。現在我們已經做到了，我們可以達到一個地方，我們可以一次獲得小得多的勝利，從而真正從這裡成長。這感覺就像幾年前個人貸款的感覺。事實上，我們提出的觀點之一是，我們今天的汽車漏斗看起來很像 2019 年的個人貸款漏斗。這顯然是大量增長的開始。這就是讓我們對該市場充滿信心的原因。

And next, we'll move on to Mike Ng with Goldman Sachs.

接下來，我們將繼續討論高盛的 Mike Ng。

I just have 2. First, I was just wondering if I could follow up on the margin commentary. Could we expect Upstart to get back to 2021 margins in 2023? Or what does that visibility look like? And when you talk about hiring the technical workforce, could you just provide a little bit more color on what the key areas of investment there are? Is that simply a doubling of this engineering and product expense? And then second, I was wondering if you could just comment on whether you're seeing any changes in institutional investor loan demand? And could you just remind us how reliant you guys are on the securitization markets? And have you seen any changes there?

我只有 2 個。首先，我只是想知道是否可以跟進邊際評論。我們能否期望 Upstart 在 2023 年恢復到 2021 年的利潤率？或者這種能見度是什麼樣的？當您談到僱用技術人員時，您能否就投資的關鍵領域提供更多的色彩？這僅僅是工程和產品費用的兩倍嗎？其次，我想知道您是否可以評論一下您是否看到機構投資者貸款需求有任何變化？您能否提醒我們你們對證券化市場的依賴程度？你看到那裡有什麼變化嗎？

Yes. This is Sanjay. So a multipart question. Let's see. The first question is whether we may see a return to our current margin structure in 2023, I guess I would say that -- so it's obviously a little bit hard to see out that far in terms of the investments we'd be making. .

是的。這是桑傑。所以一個多部分的問題。讓我們來看看。第一個問題是，我們是否會在 2023 年看到我們目前的利潤率結構的回歸，我想我會這麼說——所以就我們將要進行的投資而言，顯然很難看到這麼遠。 .

I would say this, there's no fundamental reason why our business over time won't return to our existing profile and, in fact, beat it. It's really just going to be a function of how quickly we're incubating and investing in new businesses. So auto is the one that we're obviously investing in this year.

我想說的是，我們的業務隨著時間的推移不會恢復到我們現有的形象，事實上，沒有根本原因會打敗它。這實際上只是我們孵化和投資新業務的速度的一個函數。因此，汽車顯然是我們今年投資的領域。

I suspect by 2023, it will be accreting to the bottom line, not reducing our margins. It may have a slightly different margin profile in terms of the timing of the cash flows, but we think it will be in a similar ballpark. And so each new business we get into, we're planning on getting into business lending, small business lending later this year, a small dollar lending. Maybe 2023 is the year we get into home or mortgage. They each have a slightly different margin profile, but more importantly, a cycle of investment.

我懷疑到 2023 年，它將增加利潤，而不是減少我們的利潤。就現金流的時間而言，它的利潤率可能略有不同，但我們認為它會處於類似的範圍內。因此，我們進入的每一項新業務，我們都計劃在今年晚些時候進入商業貸款，小企業貸款，小額美元貸款。也許 2023 年是我們進入房屋或抵押貸款的一年。他們每個人的保證金情況略有不同，但更重要的是，投資週期。

And so really, this begins to take the form of portfolio investment. But I do think that, as I said, we know the playbook on these businesses now. We know how to get them to profitability and beyond, and we've proven that in our core business. And so I think that our ability to incubate new businesses and get them to profitability will improve over time. And in the long run, I don't see why we would not sort of meet, if not exceed our current level of profitability as we scale multiple businesses.

真的，這開始採取證券投資的形式。但我確實認為，正如我所說，我們現在知道這些業務的劇本。我們知道如何讓他們盈利並超越盈利，我們已經在我們的核心業務中證明了這一點。所以我認為我們孵化新業務並讓它們盈利的能力會隨著時間的推移而提高。從長遠來看，我不明白為什麼我們不會滿足，如果不超過我們目前的盈利水平，因為我們擴展了多個業務。

You asked a little bit about the technical hiring, which is a big -- sort of a big objective of ours in the coming year. I mean it's pretty broad, computer scientists, data scientists, machine learning engineers, product managers. These are the people that are refining our models, leading our expansion into new areas. They're building, accelerating, strengthening our core business. They are refactoring our platform from a single product platform into a multiproduct platform. They are rearchitecting our code base from a monolith into a suite of micro services.

你問了一些關於技術招聘的問題，這是我們來年的一個大目標。我的意思是范圍很廣，計算機科學家、數據科學家、機器學習工程師、產品經理。這些人正在完善我們的模型，帶領我們向新領域擴張。他們正在建設、加速和加強我們的核心業務。他們正在將我們的平台從單一產品平台重構為多產品平台。他們正在將我們的代碼庫從單體架構重新構建為一套微服務。

They're building out bank-facing consoles and auto dealer-facing consoles and they're readying us for forage in the small dollar lending and business lending and mortgage lending. So it's very broad. But as we've said, it's pretty much to our -- in our view, it's a direct line between the work that's being done on the technical side and the bottom line of our business because that's ultimately what's at the core of the value that we're creating as a business.

他們正在構建面向銀行的控制台和麵向汽車經銷商的控制台，並為我們準備好在小額美元貸款、商業貸款和抵押貸款中尋找素材。所以範圍很廣。但正如我們所說，這對我們來說非常重要——在我們看來，這是在技術方面所做的工作與我們業務的底線之間的一條直線，因為這最終是價值的核心我們正在作為一項業務進行創建。

And then last question was on the reliance that we have on institutional investors and securitization markets, which I view to be a little bit differently. So look, the supply chain of money more broadly is obviously very important to us. It includes banks that are using their own balance sheet to fund the loans that they originate and then the excess volume that we have gets funded in the institutional world. I would say that the direct reliance we have when you sort of exceed the balance sheet capacity of your aggregate banking footprint is on the buyers of the loans as a, what we call, a forward flow buyer.

最後一個問題是我們對機構投資者和證券化市場的依賴，我認為這有點不同。所以看，更廣泛的貨幣供應鏈對我們來說顯然非常重要。它包括使用自己的資產負債表為他們發起的貸款提供資金的銀行，然後是我們在機構世界中獲得的超額資金。我想說的是，當您的總銀行足跡超出資產負債表容量時，我們的直接依賴是貸款的購買者，我們稱之為遠期流動購買者。

And so they do absorb a significant amount of the capacity that we create. The securitization markets are almost more of an indirect thing for us because it's the loan buyers themselves that then securitize the loans. And so it's more of a -- we don't touch the securitization markets directly other than we help run the deals that the investors themselves contribute into. So I think each of those investors has maybe a different answer as to what kind of liquidity they need from the securitization markets behind them.

因此，它們確實吸收了我們創造的大量能力。證券化市場對我們來說幾乎是一種間接的東西，因為是貸款購買者自己然後將貸款證券化。因此，這更像是——我們不直接接觸證券化市場，而是幫助進行投資者自己參與的交易。所以我認為每個投資者對於他們需要從他們背後的證券化市場獲得什麼樣的流動性可能有不同的答案。

But I would say there's a significant fraction of them that are more than happy to sort of buy the loans and just earn the yield without looking for liquidity in the ABS market. So I would say the reliance on securitization markets is less relevant to us directly.

但我想說的是，他們中的很大一部分人非常樂意購買貸款並賺取收益而不在 ABS 市場尋找流動性。所以我想說對證券化市場的依賴與我們的直接關係不大。

Next, we'll move on to James Faucette with Morgan Stanley.

接下來，我們將繼續討論摩根士丹利的 James Faucette。

I wanted to kind of ask a related question is we've seen the kind of normalization of the lending markets and borrowing markets, et cetera. Can you talk a little bit about what your sense of your bank partners, et cetera, are right now to continue to increase their -- the size of their loan books and kind of what you think, generally speaking, is the appetite to do so this year?

我想問一個相關的問題，我們已經看到借貸市場和借貸市場的正常化等等。您能否談談您對銀行合作夥伴等方面的看法，以繼續增加他們的貸款賬簿的規模，以及您認為一般來說，這樣做的意願是什麼？今年？

Sure, James. I don't think we're seeing any particular trend in one way or another. I think we're just kind of still early in the game, meaning we're bringing new lenders on the platform. They're mostly in -- starting in growth mode. There's a few that are at kind of what they would think of as their own peak or run rate. So -- how -- I will say for sure, last year, there was a very severe need for loans out there, almost unprecedented in terms of excess deposits, lack of loans in the banking world last year. And that certainly dissipated. I think there's a lot more belief that, that situation is correcting itself.

當然，詹姆斯。我不認為我們以一種或另一種方式看到了任何特定的趨勢。我認為我們還處於遊戲的早期階段，這意味著我們將在平台上引入新的貸方。他們大多處於 - 從增長模式開始。有一些是他們認為自己的峰值或運行率。所以 - 如何 - 我會肯定地說，去年，對貸款的需求非常迫切，就去年銀行界的超額存款和缺乏貸款而言，這幾乎是前所未有的。這肯定消散了。我認為有更多的人相信，這種情況正在自我糾正。

So maybe they won't have as much demand. It's really hard to say. Well, I don't -- I can't say that we're seeing a trend one way or the other. I think mostly, our hope is we're going to bring on a lot of bank capacity, and it's going to continue to create a better sort of net experience for consumers than the platform and we feel pretty good about that this year.

所以也許他們不會有那麼多的需求。真的很難說。好吧，我不 - 我不能說我們看到了一種或另一種趨勢。我認為主要是，我們希望我們能夠帶來大量的銀行容量，它將繼續為消費者創造比平台更好的網絡體驗，我們今年對此感覺很好。

So I guess the shorter answer is we're still in the early days of this, and we don't see a place where bank demand is going to drop off in our platform. If anything, we would certainly expect it to continue to expand.

所以我想更簡短的回答是，我們仍處於早期階段，我們看不到銀行需求會在我們的平台上下降的地方。如果有的話，我們當然希望它繼續擴大。

Good. And then the other question I had was, as you look at the kind of performance of your underwriting and that kind of thing in a normalizing market, what are you benchmarking against? And how are you -- kind of how quickly can you make adjustments where you deem necessary, et cetera? I think there -- we certainly get a lot of questions on how the performance of Upstart loans are comparable to that of other underwriting mechanisms, especially in a changing environment.

好的。然後我的另一個問題是，當您查看您的承銷業績以及正常化市場中的那種情況時，您的基準是什麼？你怎麼樣——你能多快在你認為必要的地方做出調整，等等？我認為那裡 - 我們當然會遇到很多關於 Upstart 貸款的表現如何與其他承銷機制相媲美的問題，尤其是在不斷變化的環境中。

Yes. I mean I think the thing that's unique about us is there's really 2 separate functions that operate very independently. The accuracy of the model is really the domain of the machine learning team in that sort of side of the house. Their whole goal is model accuracy, nothing more or less. They don't want the models to be underpredicting or overpredicting defaults or prepayments. They want to be as accurate as they can. And there's just nothing more to what they're doing and then trying to upgrade the models and continually get better at that.

是的。我的意思是我認為我們的獨特之處在於確實有兩個獨立的功能非常獨立地運作。模型的準確性實際上是機器學習團隊的領域。他們的全部目標是模型準確性，僅此而已。他們不希望模型低估或高估違約或預付款。他們希望盡可能準確。他們所做的只是嘗試升級模型並不斷改進。

On the other side, you sort of have the business that is bringing more banks on, bringing more investors on and sort of feeding the engine, if you will. And again, those banks decide what return they need given what they're seeing in the market, what other choices they have in terms of deploying their balance sheet or their deposits. So that just plays out in a business sense. But -- and that might mean again, if banks decide they want a higher return on the loans they are getting through the Upstart platform, then they can choose to do that. And that's just the dynamic.

另一方面，如果你願意的話，你的業務會帶來更多的銀行，帶來更多的投資者並為引擎提供動力。再一次，這些銀行根據他們在市場上看到的情況來決定他們需要什麼回報，他們在部署資產負債表或存款方面還有哪些其他選擇。所以這只是在商業意義上發揮作用。但是——這可能再次意味著，如果銀行決定他們希望通過 Upstart 平台獲得的貸款獲得更高的回報，那麼他們可以選擇這樣做。這只是動態。

It's effectively a marketplace dynamic where the choice of return versus risk and volume, et cetera, is really in the hands of the bank partners and they make those choices. And the core function of Upstart more than anything else is to be as accurate as possible on the risk models. And that does mean, as the economy is shifting, the environment shifting, that our models are keeping up with it as quickly as possible and trying to get -- stay as accurate as possible. That is certainly trickier in times when things are changing very quickly as they did 2 years ago when COVID first hit. And as they have in the last few months, as really stimulus has gone away and we're kind of returning to normal. But again, that's the primary job of that model. But what the consumer ends up experiencing in terms of prices is really a function of all that coming together.

這實際上是一種市場動態，其中回報與風險和數量等的選擇實際上掌握在銀行合作夥伴手中，他們做出了這些選擇。 Upstart 的核心功能最重要的是在風險模型上盡可能準確。這確實意味著，隨著經濟的變化，環境的變化，我們的模型會盡快跟上它，並試圖保持盡可能準確。在情況變化非常快的時候，這肯定會更加棘手，就像 2 年前 COVID 第一次來襲時那樣。正如他們在過去幾個月中所做的那樣，真正的刺激已經消失，我們正在恢復正常。但同樣，這是該模型的主要工作。但消費者最終在價格方面的體驗實際上是所有這些因素的綜合作用。

And next, we move on to John Hecht with Jefferies.

接下來，我們將繼續討論 Jefferies 的 John Hecht。

First one is maybe a few different questions on the auto side is -- one is -- how -- maybe can you talk about origination activity thus far, how many loans you have in your balance sheet? And then what's the cadence of the $1.5 billion over the course of the year? And what's the mix, indirect versus refi?

第一個問題可能是汽車方面的幾個不同問題——一個是——如何——也許你能談談到目前為止的發起活動，你的資產負債表中有多少貸款？那麼一年中 15 億美元的節奏是多少？什麼是混合，間接與 refi？

John, this is Sanjay. I'll take the first question. Auto loans on our balance sheet, I would say it's -- I won't call it a majority, but it's just maybe the most significant category of loans we have right now, the biggest category of new loans that we're sort of running R&D on. And as far as the cadence of the $1.5 billion over time, so we're not giving that split explicitly between refi and retail other than to say that refi is the program that's off the ground and up and running, and our retail program is still much earlier stage.

約翰，這是桑傑。我會回答第一個問題。我們資產負債表上的汽車貸款，我想說的是——我不會稱之為多數，但這可能是我們目前擁有的最重要的貸款類別，是我們正在經營的最大的新貸款類別研發上。至於 15 億美元隨著時間推移的節奏，所以我們沒有明確區分 refi 和零售，只是說 refi 是一個已經起步並開始運行的項目，我們的零售項目仍在更早的階段。

So what that ultimate split will look like by the end of the year, we're not really guiding to, but certainly in the early half of the year. And then this initial surge that I think is giving us confidence to be able to sort of telegraph these numbers, it's really more about the funnel that's driving the refi business.

所以到今年年底，最終的分裂會是什麼樣子，我們並沒有真正指導，但肯定是在今年上半年。然後我認為最初的激增讓我們有信心能夠傳達這些數字，這實際上更多的是關於推動 refi 業務的漏斗。

And as to the cadence over time, we'll see. I mean, I think we're not giving sort of near-term or current numbers, but we're, I would say at a run rate that gives us a reasonable level of confidence that we'll get there and it will grow hopefully linearly as we go through the year.

至於隨著時間的推移的節奏，我們將拭目以待。我的意思是，我認為我們並沒有給出近期或當前的數字，但我想說的是，我們的運行速度讓我們有合理的信心相信我們會到達那裡，並且有望增長隨著我們一年的過去，線性增長。

Okay. And then, Dave, you -- like last quarter, you were talking about different parts of the market and different parts of the year that were crowded. And so you guys, given your models, were able to find opportunity in other parts of the market. Just as we get into early '22 here and now you've got your goals, is there anything we should think about in terms of where you see opportunity now and where that might cause a mix shift to occur over the course of this year?

好的。然後，戴夫，你 - 就像上個季度一樣，你在談論市場的不同部分以及一年中擁擠的不同部分。因此，鑑於您的模型，你們能夠在市場的其他部分找到機會。就像我們進入 22 年初一樣，現在您已經有了自己的目標，就您現在在哪裡看到機會以及在哪裡可能導致在今年的過程中發生混合轉變，我們應該考慮什麼？

Well, I'd say in the personal lending category, we're pushing really across almost all parts of the credit spectrum as I think we said in the last earnings call. And I think that will continue. We are definitely bringing on more banks that really trend toward the primary end of the spectrum and will make us more competitive there, and we would anticipate that will keep going. At the same time, the core mission of the company is to make affordable credit available to everybody, and that means kind of continuously expand the perimeter of people that we can bring within the sort of national bank level.

好吧，我想說的是，在個人貸款類別中，正如我認為我們在上次財報電話會議上所說的那樣，我們正在推動信貸範圍的幾乎所有部分。我認為這將繼續下去。我們肯定會引入更多真正趨向於初級端的銀行，這將使我們在那裡更具競爭力，我們預計這種情況將繼續下去。同時，公司的核心使命是讓每個人都能獲得負擔得起的信貸，這意味著我們可以在國家銀行級別的範圍內不斷擴大人員範圍。

So that effort is continuing as well, including the small dollar product, which is really going to help us move that part of the market even faster, I think. As well as the Spanish product, which is still nascent for us, but I think is showing promises, way to just bring more people in the fold. So it's really hard to say where that will go on balance. The personal lending product, we're really in a strong position today and can continue to push on all parts of that market.

所以這種努力也在繼續，包括小美元產品，我認為這真的會幫助我們更快地移動這部分市場。還有西班牙產品，它對我們來說仍然是新生事物，但我認為它正在展示承諾，只是讓更多人參與進來。所以真的很難說這將在哪裡取得平衡。個人貸款產品，我們今天確實處於強勢地位，可以繼續推動該市場的各個方面。

And then, of course, the newer products. I think the great thing that we're excited about is we are really comfortable now. We have kind of crossed the chasm, if you will, on auto. We feel confident when building that product. And the important thing about that is the second one, at least in our view, is much harder than the ones that come after that. So proving that our models and our technologies and our skills and our teams can kind of adapt to a second very different product just gives us that much more confidence as we get into small dollars, small business.

然後，當然，更新的產品。我認為我們感到興奮的是，我們現在真的很舒服。如果你願意的話，我們在汽車上已經跨越了鴻溝。我們在構建該產品時充滿信心。重要的是第二個，至少在我們看來，比後面的要難得多。因此，證明我們的模型、我們的技術、我們的技能和我們的團隊可以適應第二種截然不同的產品，這只會讓我們在進入小額資金、小企業時更有信心。

And eventually, as a lot of people want to hear about the mortgage market, we just think that we're building the skills and the confidence. You've got to move to the subsequent products. Also building credibility with bank partners, with capital markets, investors, et cetera, that are necessary to make progress in those categories as well.

最終，由於很多人想了解抵押貸款市場，我們只是認為我們正在培養技能和信心。你必須轉向後續產品。還與銀行合作夥伴、資本市場、投資者等建立信譽，這也是在這些類別中取得進展所必需的。

And we will take Nat Schindler with Bank of America.

我們將把 Nat Schindler 帶到美國銀行。

So 2 quick questions. One, can you just explain a little bit -- I understand the investing on -- in the operations side (inaudible) next year but why would contribution margins come down from the Q4 levels? You what, 52% you're going down to 46% and then 45% for the full year. Just wondering if there's any detail there.

所以2個快速問題。一，你能解釋一下——我理解明年在運營方面的投資（聽不清），但為什麼邊際貢獻會從第四季度的水平下降？你什麼，52% 你將下降到 46%，然後全年下降到 45%。只是想知道那裡是否有任何細節。

Nat, it's Sanjay. Yes, I mean, it's almost single-handedly function of -- well, it's 2 things. One, when we do have a significant surge on the revenue side as we had in Q4, we do tend to overshoot our contribution margin because we plan to spend against what we were expecting to do in revenue and when we have a big quarter. So on the one hand, the Q4 number is maybe a little bit inflated. But I think the more important thing is as we get into Q1 and into 2022, the auto business is starting to scale. And that's at a level where the contribution margins today are much lower.

納特，是桑傑。是的，我的意思是，它幾乎是單槍匹馬的——嗯，它是兩件事。第一，當我們確實像第四季度那樣在收入方面出現大幅增長時，我們確實傾向於超過我們的邊際貢獻，因為我們計劃在收入方面和我們有一個大季度的情況下進行支出。因此，一方面，第四季度的數字可能有點膨脹。但我認為更重要的是，隨著我們進入第一季度和 2022 年，汽車業務開始擴大規模。這是在今天的邊際貢獻要低得多的水平。

And they're much lower for 3 reasons. One, certainly for the period of time, where we're putting this stuff on balance sheet, there is no fee revenue model. So contribution margin is all about fee -- revenue from fees. And right now, as we sort of originate the auto loans and put them on balance sheet, there's no fees coming in, there's interest income. And so for some period of time, there will be no fee revenue. And then even when there is, as I said earlier, I think maybe more of it may be earned ratably over the life of the loan compared to personal loans, which is all earned on transaction.

由於三個原因，它們要低得多。一，當然在我們將這些東西放在資產負債表上的一段時間內，沒有收費收入模式。因此，邊際貢獻完全與費用有關——費用收入。而現在，當我們開始發放汽車貸款並將其記入資產負債表時，沒有費用進入，有利息收入。所以在一段時間內，不會有手續費收入。然後即使有，正如我之前所說，我認為與個人貸款相比，在貸款期限內可能會獲得更多的貸款，而個人貸款都是通過交易獲得的。

So the revenue profile will be different. But I guess, equally importantly, all of the unit costs to originate an auto loan are currently subscale compared to personal lending. So whereas our CAC is at a certain level, our customer acquisition cost at a certain level and personal loans is very efficient, in auto, it's not there. We're still building our programs, learning what works. The funnel is still getting better. As Dave said, it's still sort of circa 2019 in terms of efficiency.

所以收入狀況會有所不同。但我想，同樣重要的是，目前發起汽車貸款的所有單位成本都低於個人貸款。因此，雖然我們的 CAC 處於一定水平，但我們的客戶獲取成本處於一定水平，個人貸款非常有效，但在汽車領域，它不存在。我們仍在構建我們的程序，學習什麼是有效的。漏斗還在變好。正如戴夫所說，就效率而言，它仍然是大約 2019 年。

And then our operations costs still equally are not at scale yet. We sort of overbuilt in order to sort of build this business and ramp it quickly and make sure we have safety margin. And when we're operating at scale as we are in personal lending, those will be much more efficient, much more finely tuned. So the combination of the fee model, the acquisition costs, which are still immature, the operations, which is still sort of early stage are such that as the volume of auto gets bigger, the mix between the 2, the auto will pull down the overall contribution margin.

然後我們的運營成本仍然沒有達到規模。我們有點過度建設，以便建立這項業務並迅速擴大規模，並確保我們有安全邊際。當我們像個人貸款一樣大規模運營時，這些將更有效率，更精細。因此，費用模式、尚不成熟的購置成本、仍處於早期階段的運營組合在一起，隨著汽車銷量的增長，兩者之間的混合，汽車將拉低整體邊際貢獻。

And in rough terms, I think we'll run the personal loan business at a contribution margin that's close to 50%. But as I said, I think auto as it scales, if we get to the numbers that we're talking about, it should pull down the full year numbers by -- on the order of 5%.

粗略地說，我認為我們將以接近 50% 的邊際貢獻率經營個人貸款業務。但正如我所說，我認為汽車隨著規模的擴大，如果我們得到我們正在談論的數字，它應該會將全年的數字拉低 5% 左右。

Makes sense. And then on a separate question on auto. Over the last 18 months or so, there's been such absolutely absurd appreciation in the used car market. I think it's actually the single highest appreciating category I saw. And -- at least in last year. And with -- that has made the gain on sales of loans very high because basically the risk on an auto loan went to 0 because you could just sell -- if you repo the car, you could sell it for more than the bucket force of the loan was paid off.

說得通。然後是關於汽車的單獨問題。在過去 18 個月左右的時間裡，二手車市場出現瞭如此荒謬的升值。我認為這實際上是我看到的最高讚賞類別。而且 - 至少在去年。而且 - 這使得貸款銷售的收益非常高，因為基本上汽車貸款的風險變成了 0，因為你可以賣掉 - 如果你回購汽車，你可以以超過貸款已還清。

So what's going to happen if that normalizes? And how if suddenly stimulus, there's a lot of relief stimulus added to that price appreciation. If stimulus goes away and price appreciation starts falling off, how is that going to affect auto loans over the next year, 18 months as you're comparing certainly to the last 18?

那麼如果正常化會發生什麼？如果突然採取刺激措施，那麼在價格上漲的基礎上增加了很多緩解刺激措施。如果刺激措施消失，價格升值開始下降，這將如何影響明年的汽車貸款，18 個月你肯定與過去 18 個月相比？

Well, I don't -- the sort of recent phenomenon of used cars gaining value is obviously -- any of us who grew up -- we all got advice that spend as little as you can on a used car because they only go down in value. And we're in a unique situation right now. That situation is certainly not baked into our model, an assumption that the price of used cars is going to continue to go up. That's I think safe to say nowhere in our model. So we aren't banking on the sort of unnatural situation we're seeing in the market with respect to auto pricing either for new or used cars. So that's -- we don't see that as something necessarily impactful to us.

嗯，我不 - 最近的二手車增值現象顯然是 - 我們中的任何一個長大的人 - 我們都得到了盡可能少花在二手車上的建議，因為它們只會貶值在價值上。我們現在處於一個獨特的境地。我們的模型肯定不會出現這種情況，假設二手車的價格將繼續上漲。我認為在我們的模型中無處可言。因此，在新車或二手車的汽車定價方面，我們並不依賴於我們在市場上看到的那種不自然的情況。所以那是 - 我們認為這不一定對我們有影響。

If there's any mean reversion though and prices actually go down to go back -- to renormalize, not that this will happen. But if it does happen, does that make the loan more risky? And just if the price goes up faster, is the loans less risky, if the price comes back fast, shouldn't the loans be much riskier?

但是，如果有任何均值回歸併且價格實際上會下降以返回-重新正常化，那麼這不會發生。但如果真的發生了，這是否會使貸款風險更大？如果價格上漲得更快，貸款的風險是否較小，如果價格回升得快，貸款的風險不應該更大嗎？

Yes. I guess maybe another way of putting it is that we're not -- maybe there's an analogy to where we are in sort of general lending on defaults. We're in a normal situation, but we're not deluding ourselves into believing that, that's sort of the new normal, and we're not pricing accordingly. And so put another way, these auto loans that we're writing -- if the world did not normalize, it probably overperformed because we're not sort of baking in assumptions that reflect the current reality.

是的。我想也許另一種說法是我們不是——也許這類似於我們在一般違約貸款中所處的位置。我們處於正常情況，但我們並沒有自欺欺人地相信這是一種新常態，我們也沒有相應地定價。換一種說法，我們正在撰寫的這些汽車貸款——如果世界沒有正常化，它可能會表現出色，因為我們並沒有做出反映當前現實的假設。

And so the current reality, what it's doing is inflating values. And so if the world does normalize, presumably, our returns would go back to what you'd expect in a normal environment. So we're not sort of baking in the current world in that respect into how we're pricing.

所以目前的現實，它正在做的是誇大價值。因此，如果世界確實正常化，大概我們的回報將回到您在正常環境中所期望的水平。因此，在這方面，我們並沒有在當前世界中烘焙我們的定價方式。

That does conclude today's question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Dave Girouard for any additional or closing remarks.

今天的問答環節到此結束。我想將會議轉回給 Dave Girouard 以獲取任何補充或閉幕詞。

All right. Just going to wrap it up. Thanks, everybody. We're really happy with how 2021 turned out. And obviously, we're feeling pretty bullish and optimistic about 2022. So thanks for listening today. Thanks for all who have stuck with us through all this market turmoil, and we're looking forward to a great year. And we will be in touch with you all very soon.

好的。只是要把它包起來。謝謝大家。我們對 2021 年的結果感到非常滿意。顯然，我們對 2022 年感到非常樂觀和樂觀。感謝今天的收聽。感謝所有在市場動盪中與我們在一起的人，我們期待著美好的一年。我們將很快與大家聯繫。

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference. We do appreciate your participation. You may now disconnect.

謝謝你。今天的電話會議到此結束。我們非常感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。