Aven reaches unicorn status with $142 million Series D investment

Aven, a technology company that offers consumer credit cards with home equity guarantees, today announced 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, formerly product, design, and engineering executives at Facebook and Square. Aven is on a mission to provide consumers with the most affordable and convenient access to capital. Their first product – the Aven Home Card – allows homeowners to access their home equity in minutes, starting at $0, with all the benefits of a traditional credit card. Since launching in California in 2022, the company has issued over $1.5 billion in lines of credit on the Home Card and received a 4.9-star rating on Trustpilot. The company has saved its customers over $100 million in interest payments to date.

“We believe there is no reason for someone who has assets and a good credit history to take out an unsecured loan. Period. Unsecured loans are 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 – and save them thousands of dollars without sacrificing convenience.”

Homeowners love the simplicity, efficiency and lower cost of raising capital through Aven:

• Save 50% or more on monthly interest – with interest rates starting at 7.99% APR – the lowest APR of any credit card in the U.S.1
• No annual fee, no notary/closing fee available in all states where Aven operates
• 2% unlimited cashback and 7% cashback on hotels booked on the travel portal Aven
• Credit lines up to USD 250,000
• Approval in less than 5 minutes and completion in just 15 minutes
• Pay only for what you use. Debt protection is offered to protect against unfortunate events.2

Over the last year, Aven has grown revenue three-fold and expanded its offerings to include a free, mobile financial advisory tool, Aven Advisor, which quickly gained 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 such as auto-secured cards, mortgage refinancing and more.

“By using technology to increase efficiency, Aven has developed a product that responsibly helps reduce the cost of capital by over 50% for most U.S. homeowners using alternative credit cards,” said Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures.

The company also announces the creation of an advisory board tasked with helping the company expand while protecting the interests of its cardholders and providing insight 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 deputy White House chief of staff under the Obama administration; and Kevin Warsh, former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

“When I first met the Aven team several years ago, I was blown away by the team. But I was initially skeptical that their core product would be scalable in the staid, rigid industry structure that has dominated the mortgage market for decades. The Aven team is doing a great job of proving the skeptics wrong. I am thrilled to be their partner,” said Kevin Warsh, Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

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.