Esusu – a fintech startup that targets immigrant and minority groups by providing rent reports and data solutions for crediting has raised the sum of $130 million in a Series B funding round.
The round was led by Softbak Vision Fund 2 and also saw participations 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 fundraising 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.
This raise gives Esusu, the four year old company, a valuation of $1 billion, making it one of the very few black-owned unicorns in the U.S. and globally as it is led by a Nigerian cum Indian.
The company intends to use the funding raised to scale up its team, drive growth and through product innovation and also, build a comprehensive financial health platform in the market.
Speaking on the funds raised, Nigerian-born American Abbey Wemimo and Indian American Samir Goel, the co-founders of the company 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”, the In grand 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).
About Esusu
The company was founded in 2018 byNigerian-born American Abbey Wemimo and Indian American Samir Goel, both immigrants, 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.
