US fintech Esusu valued at $1bn after raising $130m
Ellie Duncan | News
28 Jan 2022
Black-owned fintech startup Esusu has reached unicorn status following a Series B funding round that raised $130 million.
Esusu plans to use the proceeds from the latest capital injection to grow its team, accelerate new product development, and extend its reach across the US rental market.
The fintech platform partnered with its lead investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2 for the round, alongside other new investors including Jones Feliciano Family Office, Lauder Zinterhofer Family Office, Schusterman Foundation, SoftBank Opportunity Fund, Related Companies, and Wilshire Lane Capital.
In addition, existing investors Concrete Rose Capital, Equity Alliance, Impact America Fund, Motley Fool Ventures, Next Play Ventures, Sinai Ventures, TypeOne Ventures and Serena Ventures, the VC firm founded by tennis champion Serena Williams in 2014, have doubled down on their investment in Esusu.
The Series B fundraising follows Esusu’s $10 million Series A round last July, which was led by Motley Fool Ventures managing partner Ollen Douglass.
Abbey Wemimo and Samir Goel, co-founders and co-CEOs of Esusu, wrote: “The Series A round positioned the company to accelerate market adoption and become the leading platform in the sector. To scale and create the most comprehensive financial health platform for renters and owners, we needed to invest in our team, platform, and partnerships to achieve this goal.
“With plans to triple our employees, Esusu will use this Series B capital infusion to scale the team, turbocharge growth through product innovation, and build the most comprehensive financial health platform in the market.”
It is hiring across a number of departments, including engineering, data science, product, operations, marketing, human resources, account management and sales.
Esusu was founded by Wemimo and Goel in 2018, and its platform provides rent reporting, property management analytics, and rental assistance to provide financial access for renters and property owners who are “credit invisible”, or who have thin credit files.
