Deserve is an analytics-based financial technology company that has raised $17 million in Series C funding. Deserve helps users build up their credit and attain financial independence. Investors in this round include Accel Partners, Aspect Ventures, Pelion Ventures, Mission Holdings, Alumni Venture Group, and GDP Venture.
With this round of funding, Deserve will scale its platform and infrastructure as part of its goal to help 40 million college students gain financial independence by providing access to fair credit. And Deserve launched a new user-friendly mobile app to enable its cardholders to manage finances, earn rewards, and build up their credit.
The Deserve mobile app has a financial literacy section featuring credit education and videos to help users succeed financially. Plus Deserve is partnering with a number of companies to launch exclusive perks programs for cardholders.
Deserve Edu cardholders will be eligible for perks like Amazon Prime Student (18-month subscription), $100 off new smartphones or tablets through T-Mobile (if you use the Deserve Edu card to pay for it), MasterCard Cell Phone Insurance (coverage for up to $600 when you use the Deserve Edu card to pay the monthly cellphone bill), and several benefits.
Over tens of thousands of Deserve customers from over 160 countries at more than 1,800 universities across all 50 states have gained access to credit.
Deserve app
“We are thrilled to introduce our perks program and mobile app in tandem to raising our largest equity round to date. We’re another step closer to fulfilling our mission of expanding access to fair credit to all deserving, yet underserved populations,” said Deserve founder and CEO Kalpesh Kapadia in a statement. “We have spent the last few years building a modern cloud-first infrastructure powered by machine learning to originate, process, and service credit cards, providing Gen Z with the means to achieve financial independence. This strategic investment is clear validation in our vision becoming a reality at scale.”
Deserve provides credit to millions of adults regardless of their credit score. This solves the problem where many young adults lack higher credit scores due to a lack of credit history. To assess whether someone is eligible for credit, Deserve uses a proprietary algorithm for predicting credit potential instead of assessing credit history.
