Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst co-lead
investment, helping savvy homeowners cut their credit card interest
rates by upwards of 50% by tapping home equity more efficiently and
responsibly
Aven, a technology company offering consumer credit cards backed
by home equity, today announced a $142 million series D round of
funding led by Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst, with
participation from existing investors including Caffeinated
Capital, Electric Capital, Founders Fund, and The General
Partnership.
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the full release here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240717039124/en/
Aven offers consumer credit cards backed
by home equity. (Photo: Business Wire)
Aven was founded in 2019 by Sadi Khan, Collin Wikman, and
Murtada Shah, former product, design, and engineering executives at
Facebook and Square. Aven is on a mission to provide consumers with
the lowest cost and most convenient access to capital. Their first
product - the Aven Home Card - allows homeowners to access their
home equity in minutes, starting at $0 to get, with all the
benefits of a traditional credit card. Since launching in
California in 2022, the company has issued over $1.5 billion in
credit lines for the Home Card, earning a 4.9 star rating on
Trustpilot. The company has saved customers over $100 million in
interest payments to date.
"We believe there's no reason for anyone who owns an asset and
has good credit history to use unsecured credit. Full stop.
Unsecured credit is expensive and unhealthy,” said Sadi Khan,
co-founder and CEO of Aven. “With our asset-backed credit cards, we
give consumers credit for what they own - saving them thousands of
dollars without sacrificing convenience.”
Homeowners have been drawn to Aven’s ease, efficiency and lower
cost of accessing capital:
- Save 50% or more on monthly interest rates - with rates as low
as 7.99% APR – the lowest APR of any credit card in the US1
- No annual fee, no notarization/closing fee option available in
every state that Aven operates in
- 2% unlimited cashback and 7% cashback on hotels booked in the
Aven travel portal
- Credit lines up to $250,000
- Approval in less than 5 minutes and closing in as fast as 15
minutes
- Pay only for what you use and debt protection offered to
protect against adverse events2
Last year, Aven grew revenue ~3x and broadened its offering to
include a free, mobile-first financial advisory tool, Aven Advisor,
which has quickly amassed over 160,000 members. The growth
investment will be used to offer Aven’s Home Card in all 50 states,
scale Advisor, and expand into new categories including auto-backed
cards, mortgage refinance, and more.
“By using technology to drive efficiency, Aven has built a
product that responsibly helps drive down the cost of capital by
over 50% for most US homeowners who are using alternative credit
cards,” said Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures.
The company is also announcing an advisory board - focused on
helping the company scale while protecting the interests of its
cardholders and offering insights on industry conditions and
strategic opportunities. The Aven Advisory Board will be made up of
four executives: Michael DeVito, former CEO of Freddie Mac; Tim
Mayopoulos, former CEO of Fannie Mae; Jim Messina, former Deputy
Chief of Staff to the White House under the Obama administration;
and Kevin Warsh, former member of the Board of Governors of the
Federal Reserve System.
“I was blown away by the Aven team when I first met them several
years ago. But I was initially skeptical that their core product
would scale in the staid, calcified industry structure that has
prevailed in the mortgage market for decades. The Aven team is
proving the skeptics wrong in a big way. I am thrilled to be their
partner,” said Kevin Warsh, Fellow at the Hoover Institution at
Stanford University.
Aven is currently available in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas,
Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North
Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New
Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota,
Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming with a goal of
reaching all 50 states by 2025.
For more information visit www.aven.com.
About Aven
Aven is the best credit card for smart homeowners. Backed by
home equity, it offers the lowest rates, best rewards, highest
lines, and most flexibility - starting at $0 to get, use, and
cancel. Aven has issued over $1.5 billion in credit lines and has
saved its cardholders over $100 million in interest since
inception. Aven is partnered with Coastal Community Bank, Member
FDIC. Equal Housing Lender. NMLS #462289. Learn more at
www.aven.com.
Disclosures / Footnotes
1 Our APR is 7.99% - 15.49%. The average for other cards in the
US for people with good credit is 24.14% as of [June 6th, 2024].
Source:
https://wallethub.com/edu/cc/average-credit-card-interest-rate/50841
2 An adverse event includes involuntary job loss.
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Whitney Topping whitney@walkercomms.com