Fintech
Aven Reaches Unicorn Status With $142M Series D Investment
A technology company that offers consumer credit cards backed by the net value of your home, Aviano achieves unicorn status by announcing a $142 million Series D funding round led by Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst, with participation from existing investors including Caffeinated Capital, Electric Capital, Founders Fund, and The General Partnership.
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 affordable access to equity. Their first product, Aven Home Card, allows homeowners to access their home equity in minutes, starting with $0 to get it, with all the benefits of a traditional credit card. Since launching in California in 2022, the company has issued over $1.5 billion in Home Card lines of credit, earning a 4.9-star rating on Trustpilot. The company has saved customers over $100 million in interest payments to date.
“We believe there is no reason why anyone who owns property and has a good credit history should use unsecured credit. Period. 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 were attracted by Aven’s simplicity, efficiency and low cost of access to 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 U.S.
- No annual fee, no notarization/closing fee option available in every state Aven operates in
- Unlimited 2% cashback and 7% cashback on hotels booked on the Aven travel portal
- Credit lines up to $250,000
- Approval in less than 5 minutes and closing in just 15 minutes
- Pay only for what you use and debt protection offered to protect you from adverse events
Last year, Aven grew revenue by nearly 3x and expanded its offerings to include a free, mobile-first financial advice 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 refinancing, and more.
“Using technology to increase efficiency, Aven has created a product that responsibly helps reduce the cost of capital by more than 50% for the majority of U.S. homeowners using alternative credit cards,” said Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures.
The company is also announcing an advisory board, focused on helping the company grow while protecting the interests of its cardholders and providing insights into industry conditions and strategic opportunities. Aven’s advisory board will consist of four executives: Michael DeVito, former CEO of Freddie Mac; Tim Mayopoulos, former CEO of Fannie Mae; Jim Messina, former White House deputy chief of staff 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 static, calcified industry structure that has prevailed in the mortgage market for decades. The Aven team is significantly proving skeptics wrong. I am thrilled to be their partner,” said Kevin Warsh, a researcher 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.
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