Credit Sesame announced today it has raised over $42 million in equity and venture debt. The funding comes from existing and new investors including Menlo Ventures, Inventus Capital, Globespan Capital, IA Capital, SF Capital, among others, along with a strategic investor. The funds will be used to accelerate the company’s growth, hiring, and member acquisition, and to advance its analytics, robo-advisor and machine learning technologies.
Credit Sesame’s robo-advisor technology leverages its significant consumer data and analytics along with thousands of rules and insights that have been developed and proven over the past several years. As the first of its kind in the industry, this technology aims to simplify and automate the management of consumer credit and loans, addressing the liability side of the balance sheet and helping consumers achieve improved financial wellness.
“While many companies have spent the last few years catching up to our free credit score offerings for consumers, Credit Sesame has been developing and proving robo-advisor technology,” said Adrian Nazari, founder and CEO of Credit Sesame. “This technology translates consumer financial and credit information into simple and actionable steps that consumers can easily understand and utilize to improve their financial profile and leverage their credit. As a result, 45% of our members are engaged monthly, helping us achieve an unprecedented relationship and engagement with our members.”
Launched in 2011, Credit Sesame has attracted over 12 million members. The mobile and web solution provides consumers with tools to build a path to achieve financial wellness, including free access to their credit profile complete with their credit score, credit report grades, credit monitoring, interactive step-by-step tools and recommendations for better lending options.
Credit Sesame has seen over 100 percent annual growth for the past three years and achieved full profitability in early 2017. A new strategic investor has also joined Credit Sesame’s consortium of investors in this round. A separate strategic partnership may be announced in the near future that will allow millions more to benefit from Credit Sesame’s services.
With this funding Credit Sesame intends to add over 100 new employees to its offices in downtown Mountain View and its newly acquired office in San Francisco in the next 12 months, with the majority of hiring focused on increasing engineering, data science and analytics teams.
The new $42 million in funding is comprised of $26.6M in equity and $15.5M in venture debt, bringing the San Francisco-based fintech company’s total funding to over $77 million. Financial Technology Partners LP acted as an exclusive strategic and financial advisor to Credit Sesame for this round.
