One of the founders of lending startup Athena Home Loans believes the domestic superannuation sector is on the cusp of becoming a major source of direct funding for Australian mortgages. Athena co-founder and chief operating officer Michael Starkey said he expected up to 50 per cent of the company's loan funding would emanate from super providers in the next decade.Speaking on Monday after the official launch of Athena's mortgage operation in Australia, Starkey told Banking Day the lender was in strategic talks with a number of superannuation providers."We're in discussions with a number of superannuation funds right now but I'm not in a position to name who they are," Starkey said."We're providing an opportunity for super funds to invest in the business but it will take time to develop."In the next decade we think as much as forty to fifty per cent of our funding could come through the superannuation sector."Athena broke new ground last year when one of the country's largest industry funds, HostPlus, became a cornerstone investor in the business.Other fintechs have encountered more difficulty winning direct investment from the retirement savings sector.It is not clear whether Athena is seeking fresh equity from other industry funds or is testing the sector's interest in an emerging class of mortgage-backed investment vehicles.Startup lenders in the Netherlands have managed to snare 10 per cent of the mortgage market in that country by securing direct financial backing from pension and life insurance funds. And a similar trend has begun to develop in Sweden.So far, Dutch pension funds have committed more than 50 billion Euros to the mortgage lending sector through special investment structures that deliver significantly higher returns than traditional securitisation vehicles.The attraction of Dutch and Swedish pension funds to digital lenders is their low-cost mortgage origination and management systems.Athena is hoping to demonstrate it can generate similar savings in the Australian market that can feed into better comparative returns for investors than RMBS offerings or even the dividend yields of listed banks.The ongoing support of the super funds might hang in great part on the risk profile of the mortgages that Athena originates over time.Athena's promise of a cheaper mortgage supply chain coupled with an average-or-better delinquencies experience has the potential to trigger a wave of disintermediation not seen since the mid-1990s.Starkey is selling Athena's business model as an end-to-end process of continuous simplification."We have built a mortgage business that is designed to reduce complexity and lower costs," he said."Our focus is on mortgage lending - we're not applying to be a bank - we will never be a bank."Athena is pursuing a staged entry into the home loan market and is hoping to write around $1 billion of loans in 2019.As of this week the company began marketing mortgages to home borrowers looking to refinance.At present the product is only available directly through Athena's online platforms.Starkey said the company would start pitching loans to new owner-occupiers in three to four months.