Exponent announced it has raised more than $40 million in combined equity and credit capital to expand its financial infrastructure platform for multi-location franchise operators across the U.S.
The financing includes a $7.5 million Series A equity round led by Chailease and Andre Koo, with co-lead participation from Era, the investment firm founded by Jasper Lau. Additional participation came from K8 Capital and Inauguration Capital.
The financing package also includes more than $30 million in committed credit facilities supporting Exponent’s lending products, including a previously announced $20 million revolving credit facility from Jovian Capital Management.
Exponent is focused on the U.S. franchise economy, which the company cites as generating more than $921 billion in annual output and supporting nearly 9 million jobs. The platform is designed specifically for operators managing multiple franchise locations, particularly those overseeing between five and fifty units.
The company’s integrated platform combines expansion and acquisition lending, corporate charge cards, and an AI-powered accounting and bookkeeping platform. The lending products support franchise acquisitions, remodels, and new unit development, while the charge card product includes multi-entity controls and embedded working capital tools for franchise operators.
Exponent also plans to launch an AI-powered accounting suite later this summer. The company said the platform will provide real-time financial estimates and AI-assisted bookkeeping services staffed by U.S.-based accountants. According to the company, the offering is expected to cost under $250 per location per month, compared to the higher costs associated with many outsourced bookkeeping services.
Exponent said it currently serves more than 100 multi-unit franchise operators representing over 10,000 locations nationwide. Customers include the HAZA Group, Capstone Restaurant Group, Chunara Group, TIG Corp, and Epic Group of Companies.
Brands connected to operators or partnerships on the platform include Burger King, Dunkin’, Buffalo Wild Wings, Jack in the Box, Blaze Pizza, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Take 5 Oil Change, Grease Monkey, Dessange Paris, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and Golfzon.
Exponent was founded and seeded by Era and is led by Sohel Roopani, a former executive at Visa and Stripe.
The company said it is hiring across engineering, credit, and accounting functions at its New York City headquarters while continuing to expand its lending capacity and onboard additional franchise operators.
KEY QUOTES:
“Franchise operators are some of the best small business operators in the country. They build durable cash flows, employ millions of Americans, and own real assets. They have been handed antiquated tools to run their businesses on. Capital providers don’t provide a good experience for multi-unit operations. Technology firms focus on brands, and not enough on operators. We built Exponent because this industry deserves a financial partner that actually speaks its language — and gives it the same caliber of capital, data, and software that’s being delivered to other high income, high asset sectors of the economy today.
The accounting and bookkeeping products are going to be the most important thing we ship this year. There has been almost no real innovation in franchise accounting in twenty years. The default answer in this industry has been to send the work to India or the Philippines to chase labor arbitrage, because the underlying workflow is so manual that the only lever was cost. Modern AI changes that math entirely. We can build a better product, deliver real-time financials instead of month-end-plus-fifteen-days, and do it with American accountants. That’s a meaningfully better outcome for operators, for the profession, and for the country.”
Sohel Roopani, CEO, Exponent
“The franchise operator segment is exactly the kind of market we look for at Era — large, essential, profoundly underserved by incumbents, and ready for a vertically integrated software-and-capital approach. What the Exponent team has built is not a single product. It is the financial operating system this industry has been waiting for, and the team executing it has the depth in payments, credit, and operations to actually deliver it. Era is proud to have founded and seeded Exponent and to co-lead this round as the company scales.”
Jasper Lau, Founder And CEO, Era
“Exponent is exactly the kind of company we exist to help build at Inauguration Capital: an AI-native financial platform serving a foundational American industry — the franchise operators who run the small businesses anchoring every community in the country. Returning skilled accounting work onshore through modern AI tooling isn’t just a better product; it strengthens American competitiveness. We have deep conviction in this business model and in our team.”
Tim Hwang, Founder And Managing Partner, Inauguration Capital
