US-based fintech developer Deserve picked up $50m in a funding round yesterday led by investment bank Goldman Sachs, with participation from financial services firm Sallie Mae.
Accel, Aspect Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners and Mission Holdings also contributed to the round.
Founded in 2013 as SelfScore, Deserve offers credit cards to consumers who have little credit history or face other struggles to obtaining credit. The company relies on machine learning and non-traditional data sets to determine creditworthiness.
Deserve’s core demographics are international students in the US and millennials. It offers perks such as cashback, smartphone cover and complementary Amazon Prime Student.
Deserve also markets its technology platform directly to corporations to offer branded cards, and the funding will allow the company to further pursue this strategy. The company will also hire staff across its engineering, data science, sales and marketing teams.
Deserve has raised $93.1m in funding to date. Sallie Mae previously led a $17m series C round in August 2018, with participation from Accel, Aspect Ventures, Pelion Ventures, Mission Holdings, Alumni Venture Group and GDP Venture.
– Image courtesy of Deserve
