Deserve Raises $12M in Funding

Deserve, a Menlo Park, Calif. – based provider of a credit card designed for Generation Z, raised $12M in funding.

The round was led by Accel, with participation from Aspect Ventures, Pelion Ventures, Mission Holdings, Alumni Venture Group and GDP Venture.

Led by Kalpesh Kapadia, founder and CEO, Deserve uses machine learning and alternative data to provide millennials and Gen Z’s access to fair credit products and the tools to achieve financial independence.
The Deserve card was designed to help the more than 1 in 3 Americans (18 – 29) without a credit card gain access to credit even if they don’t qualify for traditional lending based on the FICO system. FICO is based on the credit history, which young people who are just starting out naturally lack. Deserve uses a proprietary algorithm to predict credit potential instead of simply assessing credit history by using consumer attributes such as education, current financial health, and future employability.

The startup optimized its model to assess credit for over 100,000 international students in the past two years under the name SelfScore. Now, in addition to changing their brand to Deserve, the company is expanding its audience to all 20 million college students and another 20 million young adults in the United States.

Accounts are issued by Celtic Bank, a Utah Chartered Industrial Bank, Member FDIC.

FinSMEs

25/10/2017

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