Esusu, a credit-building and rent-reporting platform, announced raising a $10.6 million funding round co-led by Serena William’s Serena Ventures fund and Motley Fool Ventures, according to a press release.
The company helps individuals build their credit by capturing and reporting rental payments to the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) and also provides a zero-interest housing stability fund to help renters facing hardship avoid eviction.
“This Series A financing enables Esusu to double down on growth through product innovation, top talent recruitment and building the most comprehensive financial health platform in the market for low-to-medium-income families,” co-founder Abbey Wemimo told CNBC. “We exist in 2 million households across all 50 states. We want to grow that to cover 5 million households within the next year.”
The funding included participation from The Equity Alliance, Predictive VC and other angel investors, as well as previous seed round investors Concrete Rose Capital, Impact America Fund, Global Impact Fund, Next Play Ventures and Zeal Capital Partners. Esusu now has raised $14 million in funding to date following three seed rounds totaling $4.3 million between August 2018 and August 2020.
“Esusu is really focused on credit building and creating pathways to financial inclusion for not only working families but for individuals as well. Their services also make rent reporting seamless, finally giving renters credit for what often is their largest expense every month,” Serena Williams stated in the release.
The platform charges users $50 per year for the service, and can report up to 24 months of past rental payments for an additional flat fee of $50. Esusu says that it raises credit scores by over 47 points over 12 months on average, and has helped over 1,200 individuals previously without credit to establish prime scores, according to its website.
Esusu also offers the service to property managers, citing that 2-of-3 residents prefer apartments with rent reporting and a $20,000 savings per eviction prevented, and that the service prompts a 25% increase in on-time rent payments.
In other recent fintech news, financial data company Daloopa raised a $20M Series A led by Credit Suisse. Robinhood also filed its S-1/A, aiming for a $35B valuation.