Rent has always been the quiet heavyweight in American finance. Paid every month. Non negotiable. Miss it and life gets loud. Pay it faithfully and the system shrugs. For decades, rent lived outside the credit economy like it was not real money. In December 2025, Esusu made that omission impossible to ignore, closing a $50M Series C led by Westbound Equity Partners at a $1.2B valuation. Not hype. Confirmation. Rent finally counts.
Esusu was founded in 2018 by Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs, shaped by immigrant families who did everything right and still got denied. Wemimo Abbey arrived from Lagos without a credit file and learned fast how invisible effort can be. Samir Goel watched his family sell a wedding ring and borrow from church members just to get stable. Esusu was built in New York on a simple truth. Rent is the most consistent bill most people pay. Ignoring it was always bad math.
Today Esusu reports on time rent payments to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion across 5M plus rental units, touching roughly 12M people and surfacing nearly $100B in annual rent volume. The outcomes are measurable. Renters saw an average 45 point credit score lift in 2024. 12% moved from subprime to prime. Over 200K people established their first credit score. This is not branding. This is credit files changing.
The ripple effects stretch far beyond the renter. $30B+ in mortgage funding unlocked. $8.6B in auto loans. $7B in credit cards. $2B in student loans. $50B in total credit activity tied directly to rent data. Property owners benefit too, with fewer delinquencies and lower eviction rates. Esusu does not sell empathy. It delivers outcomes.
This Series C brought in Blue Meridian Partners, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and strategic family offices, with Jeff Weiner advising through Westbound Equity Partners. The capital is aimed at scale, not experiments. Rent Reporting as a Service APIs embedded into banks and fintechs. Deeper alignment with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Expansion of myEsusu memberships. Preparation for Esusu Pay, letting renters split rent into manageable payments without breaking trust.
Then came Zillow in November 2025. Rent reporting placed in front of 228M monthly users for $20 a year. Distribution most fintechs never touch. Add SOC2 Type 2 security, the Celeri acquisition strengthening identity verification, and an 11% improvement in VantageScore 4.0 accuracy, and the shape becomes clear. This is infrastructure.
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