Esusu, a fintech targeting immigrant and minority groups and providing rent reporting and data solutions for credit building, has raised $130 million in a Series B fundraising round.
The Series B fundraising round gives the four-year-old Esusu led by a Nigerian cum India a valuation of $1 billion, making it one of the very few black-owned unicorns in the U.S. and globally.
The funding round was led by Softbak Vision Fund 2 and also saw participation from Jones Feliciano Family Office, Lauder Zinterhofer Family Office, Schusterman Foundation, SoftBank Opportunity Fund, Related Companies and Wilshire Lane Capital.
Also, investors such as Motley Fool Ventures, who was the lead investor from its $10 million Series A round last July, also re-invested in the new financing round while other existing investors Concrete Rose Capital, The Equity Alliance, Impact America Fund, Next Play Ventures, Serena Ventures, Sinai Ventures, and TypeOne Ventures participated too.
Expectedly, the startup will use the funding to scale its team and drive growth through product innovation whilst also building the most comprehensive financial health platform in the market.
What they are saying about the funding
Commenting on the newly secured fund, Nigerian-born American Abbey Wemimo and Indian American Samir Goel; who founded the company on the basis of experiencing financial exclusion growing up in immigrant homes, in a statement noted, “We founded Esusu with the vision of using data to bridge the racial wealth gap and create more equitable financial opportunities for low-to-moderate-income households in this country.
“By establishing and improving credit scores, we are strengthening financial identities while empowering individuals, families, and communities to meet their long-term financial goals.”
What this means
In total, Esusu has raised over $144 million, thus joining a group of black-led and owned startups globally that have achieved the unicorn valuation out of more than 900 companies. These companies include U.S. scheduling app, Calendly ($3 billion); U.K.-based fintech Zepz ($5 billion) and digital insurance startup Marshmallow ($1.2 billion), African fintechs – Flutterwave ($1 billion), Chipper Cash ($2 billion) and Interswitch ($1 billion).
What you should know about Esusu
The company was founded in 2018 to build the credit scores of marginalized groups and as well as leverage data to bridge the racial wealth gap via rental payments by capturing on-time rental payment data of renters who opt-in to its platform and reports to the three major credit bureaus–Equifax, TransUnion and Experian–to strengthen their credit scores.