Esusu

The companies on this list are mobilizing the creative tools of capitalism to help solve social problems.

5044 - Esusu team members volunteering at a property community day

In a country where a person’s credit score determines their financial future, Esusu is helping put people on the map. The company helps individuals improve their credit profile by reporting their timely rent payments to the major credit bureaus, while leaving out any late or missed payments. In the first year of an initiative with the government-sponsored mortgage firm Freddie Mac, Esusu helped more than 27,000 people establish credit scores, and it increased participants’ average scores by 46 points. It currently services over 1 million renters across all 50 states. Through a partnership with 501(c)(3) public charity organization Stable Home Fund, Esusu also provides eligible renters who’ve had an economic setback with up to three months of rental assistance. Esusu’s $130 million funding round in 2022 made the fintech company one of the few Black-owned unicorns in the world, with a $1 billion valuation.

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Wemimo Abbey, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Esusu (appearing virtually) , Shivani Siroya, Founder and CEO, Tala | In conversation with: Jo Ling Kent, Brainstorm Tech 

Brainstorm Tech 2023: Democratizing Finance 

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Alongside many attractions of the fintech sector is its potential to democratize finance. And here in the in the US with neo banks in the mix, there are now specialized solutions that are catering directly to niche markets, creating access for previously marginalized groups. So our next conversation is going to zero in on how emerging tech can and should leverage this moment and bridge existing gaps globally. Joining us virtually is WMO Abbi, co founder and co CEO of SUU, one of the pioneering fintech unicorns that provides credit building solutions to underserved communities. And also joining us is Shani Croy, founder and Ceo of Talla Tala is a global tech company committed to fostering financial inclusion and empowerment and they're going to be interviewed by brainstorm tech coacher Joely Kent. Please welcome them. Good morning. How's everyone doing? It was a great conversation with Adam. Uh Thank you all for being here this morning. Um I'm thrilled to be joined by Abby and also thank you both for being here. Uh Virtually, we wish you were here, but thank you both for attending today. Thanks a lot for having us. So I wanted to start by just briefly introducing the two companies. I think that what you both do is so important and it's important for everyone here to understand that Vanni, you run Tala and it's a micro loan company and a mobile app for emerging markets. You've dispersed over $3 billion in loans and you provide credit scores and now banking products and services with a really impressive 98% repayment rate. And Abby at Esu, you guys are helping renters and low income Americans build credit while maintaining secure housing. Basically capturing the fact that people are making on time rental payments. And it's pretty remarkable because 45 million people are considered to be rent credit invisible due to the fact that they're a renting household. So I'd like to start with you, Abby. I was wondering given this tight economic environment and where we are with the macro global picture. How does that impact your customers and your business? Yeah, thanks a lot. Um It's definitely a tough and challenging time right now for the particular customer base that we focus on just to give you context. Um the population, we focus on the average income is roughly around $43,000. So there are three mega trends that we're watching. Um Number one debt to equity ratio has skyrocketed um based on our data debt debt to equity ratio in 2020 was around 9 10%. Today has shut up to 47%. So we're saying um and the healthy level just for context is around 30%. So same households living paycheck to paycheck struggling um and not having the ability to essentially get the liquidity, um they need. Uh And then the effect of high interest rates is also, you know, impacting the demographic that we, you know, serve day in day out. Um you know, for other issues with folks being priced out um from a leverage perspective. Um And that's really, really challenging. And the third piece which is um concerning and no one is talking about today is the rate of eviction. Um based on our data in 2019 today, eviction is four times higher than what it is um than what it was in 2019 and as well as delinquents, so there's a mass eviction crisis that we need to deal with and especially given the interest rate environment, we're going to be in a long era of pain Giovanni. What is the global picture like? Because I've heard you say before, you know, in reference to the United States where you do not operate, but you're, you're based here that, you know, according to bank rate four in 10 Americans can't afford a financial emergency right now. Is the global customer of your company more resilient or is it a more crouched position right now? It's a good question. Um And, and I think even even more so I think right now, um we are really seeing more resiliency in our customer base. Um I think it really goes into the fact that our customers live this kind of volatility every single day. So what I would say is I think it's important to separate two things. I think resiliency comes from just their character, their attitude towards life, their just kind of normal pace is volatile. So they will figure it out. That is just in their DNA at this point. Now, when it comes to what are the tools that they can use to be more resilient and not do it with so much sacrifice and pain. I think that's where there are more tools available in the US. And now, you know, whether they're spread out and, and being given to the under served, you know, I know more about the global side and I would say that what we see is really on, you know, in our customer base, two thirds of our customers still tell us that they don't have access. And that's because even though we see fintech globally, you know, starting to appear, they're still focusing on the prime segment, they're still focusing on the customer that has again choice and so tools like enable our customers to now become more resilient and to do it. I think with, I think more agency um as opposed to sacrifice. It's interesting when you talk about agency and sacrifice that Abby I'd like to ask you about affordable housing here in the US because so much of what you do is directly linked to that. And I know that as Suu recently partnered with Fannie Mae, and it's a really interesting partnership because essentially Fannie Mae says they're going to pay for the first year of service fees of sou and to incentivize borrowers to report their on time rental payments to up their credit score. And so how are these partnerships going? How are they paying off? Do you feel like, you know, these types of opportunities are able to build your customer base and actually make a longer term positive impact for your customers? Absolutely. I think it's important to go down memory lane a little bit just to give the audience a little bit of context. You know, we have 36% of Americans rents and on an average, they send roughly $1.44 trillion in rent to their landlords every year. And the unfortunate part is when you pay your mortgage, that data is reflected in your credit score. But when you pay your rent, unfortunately, it's not reflected and even worse, less and 10% of that data is captured today. So the technology we build and collaborations with institutions like the fragile housing finance agency, FH Fa or Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, um essentially gives the opportunity for our clients which are large owners and operators of real estate to be able to subsidize the cost of our services. Um So you know, when a renter pays their rent on time instead of charging the renter the landlord and provided, they have a Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae loan. Now, they can essentially get access to our services for free. And one thing I'm really, really excited about is really the impact that we've seen. You know, since that collaboration, the combined effort has essentially created credit scores for over 50,000 people that never had a credit score before. That's incredibly powerful. You know, when my mother and I moved to this country, we had to go borrow money from a predator lend at over 400% interest rate. My mother sold my father's wedding ring, bought money from church members and that's how we got started. So collaborations with Freddie Mac and is really proven a simple hypothesis, no matter where you come from the color of your skin and particularly your financial identity, shouldn't determine the kind of opportunities or the financial access you have. Even from a record perspective, we've seen folks that have established their credit scores and folks that have improved their credit on an average by 46 points. I've also gone on to get access to over $4 billion in credit activities and mortgage um is a quintessential part of that, accounting for roughly $1.2 billion. So we're incredibly proud of our collaborations with not only Fannie Mae but Freddie Mac and we're really excited to really continue to pave that permanent bridge, the financial access and inclusion um for the stakeholders, we have the good fortune to work alongside Abby. I should point out that your personal story brought you to my home state of Minnesota and we share that in common and it's, it's, it's an, it's an incredible thing because what happens in a state like Minnesota is you really do see the diversity of needs economically when it comes to the housing market. And this is a question for both of you about what you can do with the technology that you have. I was wondering Giovanni and then Abby, how are you integrating A I? And how are you leveraging or using the data that you're gathering on your customers? And how are you using language learning models to build the next part of your products at your company? Sini, I'll start with you. So I think it's important to start with, you know, what is the customer gaining through this technology? And so we really ask ourselves always, you know, what can the customer provide that then creates more value for them that enables us to again create more and more value down the down the line for them. So in that sense, you know, similar to what Abby just mentioned, you know, our customers are largely unseen by the financial marketplace and so we really have to start with, OK, what do they have available to us that enables us to understand them better, they have their daily life data and it's sitting, you know, on devices. And so we really started from this place of saying, can we build a new kind of credit score using alternative data? Because our customers are largely spending in cash, you know, their receipts, their transactions are unseen. And so we really needed to think about it as how do we actually gather these different data sources, these patterns, these transactions, their daily life behavior in a way to then create a proprietary credit score that can use to do lending. But we've now moved beyond lending to be a full global money app for the underserved. We've already reached now about a million customers in the Philippines that are not just borrowing from us, but these are customers that now have a full account product. And so now leveraging A I and machine learning to really think of it as the right offer at the right time. And that's not always credit. It's really meeting the customer where they already are and what they're showing us that they need that they want how they want to use their money over time. And so I think it really allows us to again be front and center in the customer's lives. And then I think the other uses of A I that, you know, all Syntech are talking about um and that we're leveraging as well is how do we actually again create more efficiency and more cost effectiveness in our supply chain. And so we're, you know, we work across five different global offices. We operate in Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico and India. We've now served nearly 9 million customers. And, you know, our CS and CL team is only 200 people that we're really thinking of it as again, how do we personalize, how do we customize using technology but still be able to have that trust and that relationship with our customers. Um And so we've been doing that since day one for the last seven years, but it's exciting to see where the technology is now going because again, it'll enable us to scale much faster. How about you, how is, is the company integrating A I and language learning models? Absolutely. You know, it's really three things for us. It's access number one. We capture a plethora of data when we capture information and report that rental data into the consumer and agencies. We have a lot of um personal identifiable information. And our goal that is, is really how do we better price risk and how do you reach that information dislocation whereby we want to make sure someone that has access to information on Wall Street, someone living in, you know, Crookston Minnesota or Saint Paul Minnesota, um that might be low to medium income as the same information. Um And that's one of the ways um we're thinking about A I especially from a such standpoint there's a lot of financial literacy content out there and that information is just not um readily distributed to this particular demographic. So making sure access is there um is is of utmost importance for us. Number two is our underwriting model, the price risk. So how do we essentially make sure if someone wants to get a mortgage today in addition to their FICO scores. Can we include rent or data? Um Rent is 30 to 50% of the population. We focus on um their largest monthly expense. So how do we make sure when you are getting their big ticket items like a mortgage, that data is factored or things like their car notes to better price that risk and actually see them um in full um picture. The third thing is proximity. Um You know, I'll tell you a story when, when raised 100 and $30 million and the company was valued at a billion. I called my mother and say, hey mom, you know, I think we made it. This is an exciting period. I know my mother told me my mother was like, oh, I'm so proud of you, son. How's the wedding planning coming along? Issue of proximity? Right? Necessarily comprehend, you know, what's going on. Um particularly because there's lack of information and she doesn't really understand the full extent of what that kind of um you know, funding could have in, in, in um in isu's trajectory. So how do we level the playing field and how do we make sure access to information is just not selective, rather equally distributed. And folks can essentially make decisions, we give them social agency and people don't want to hand out people just want to fight. And so those are some of the things that we are leveraging A I to do customer support is also another important um you know, for us to streamline our operations and make sure that things are very efficient because that is we believe in running a value business with growth outcomes. But we're really, really excited about, you know, a lot of impact A I will have in the landscape and we think the best is still yet to come. I'd like to open it up to audience questions. If you have a question for Shabani or Abby, please raise your hand and I'd be happy to come to you with a microphone. In the meantime, I'd like to know from both of you what it's like to compete in this environment because both what you both do are very unique skills and services that you provide for the communities that you do. You see bigger players, bigger banks trying to come in and do what you do in order to take advantage of an under served under banked population or in the case of the credit score issue, Sivani, do you, what is the competition like I know you've said before, there isn't that much competition. But has that changed recently? What we're finding is, uh we're actually finding a lot more around the partnership front. Um I would say that bigger banks are coming to us really saying they see the opportunity, but again, for them to actually go downstream, they would need to change their entire infrastructure, they'd have to change again, all of their working models, right? Because this customer again needs to be designed for uniquely. It's not just about how you credit score this customer or even KYC the customer. It is really about going beyond that to think about how do you service at every single point in the journey. And so in that sense, uh we're finding actually not just banks. Um I would say mobile operators, we're finding Remittance companies, bill payment companies, the gig economy. Um you know, service providers all coming to us saying you are the platform that allows us to get to this segment. Um And I think actually starting to realize that there is double sided value in this. So it's not just that they can, you know, make money through lending through as the platform, but it's really thinking about how do they better retain and even provide more value to their customer base by giving them access to a platform. Like I would say that what we do see is within the in tech industry. We are starting to see that because of, you know, kind of new technology coming out. That's where we're both excited and also driven to produce higher quality products for our customers. But we are seeing again that there is more options for this customer base coming up. Thank you, Abby. I have 20 seconds or left for you to answer the question. I apologize. What's your closing thoughts? Closing thoughts um is just I think Ghana and it's really collaboration, you know, a you know what we stand for and the, the meaning of the company is if you want to go fast, you go alone and if you want to go far, you fundamentally need to go together. So we're saying there are large institutions saying it's just you can very, you can price risk and score people that have been considered credit invisible. And one important start I'll close with is there are 45 million people in this country that don't have a credit score, deem credit invisible, the average debts around $92,000. We are focusing on those demographic and particularly if we can just do simple math and multiply $92,000.45 million, we can unlock over $4.1 trillion. So what we are doing at is um is not a charity case. It's a win, win, win, outcome, a win for the American Society, a win for our owners and operators of real estate and a win for the renters at large. And you know, by doing that we believe that we can essentially, you know, lift everyone up in this equation and from our, from our vantage point, it's what we like to call justice capitalism is not sustainable. Well, Abby, thank you so much to Soraya. Thank you also as well for joining us today. We really appreciate your time.

Wemimo Abbey, Co-founder and Co-CEO Esusu
Laureen Meroueh, Founder and CEO, Hertha Metals; Breakthrough Energy Innovator Fellow 
Vivek Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, InStride
In conversation with: Alyson Shontell, Editor-in-Chief, FORTUNE; Co-chair, Fortune CEO Initiative

CEO Initiative 2022 - Creative Capitalism: Using Ingenuity To Make An Impact

Wemimo Abbey, Co-founder and Co-CEO Esusu
Laureen Meroueh, Founder and CEO, Hertha Metals
Vivek Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, InStride

Creative Capitalism: Using Ingenuity To Make An Impact

Wemimo Abbey, Co-founder and Co-CEO Esusu
Laureen Meroueh, Founder and CEO, Hertha Metals
Vivek Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, InStride
In conversation with: Alyson Shontell, Editor-in-Chief, FORTUNE; Co-chair, Fortune CEO Initiative

Wemimo Abbey, Co-founder and Co-CEO Esusu
Laureen Meroueh, Founder and CEO, Hertha Metals
Vivek Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, InStride
In conversation with: Alyson Shontell, EIC, FORTUNE

In our leadership roundtable discussions and mainstage conversations. We've been examining the themes and interlocking mechanisms that are helping create capitalism. 2.0, an essential driver of transformation across business sectors is innovations in this evening's program, we're going to hear from three business leaders about how innovation can catalyze and accelerate social impact. Please welcome to the C E O I stage Lauren merry way Ceo and founder of Hertha medals and breakthrough energy innovator fellow Vivek Sharma chief executive officer at in stride and joining us momentarily will be with me Mo Abbey co founder and co Ceo at Suzu joining the conversation is fortune editor in chief Allison Chantelle. All right, good evening everyone. Uh welcome to Fortune Ceo. I in our evening this we have incredible guests started the varying stages here with us who think that doing good is also good for doing business. And so um beck you started in stride a few years ago um, maybe could just open up with saying what your vision for inside is actually the walt Disney company to do this. You've been with corporate America for a long time. Why this vision by this company? So first of all, thanks for hosting us um in stride was launched with my basic belief that businesses have a social impact obligation as well. And around the time I was working at the walt Disney company, I was also the adjunct professor of data science at USC. So one thing I could see was look at corporations as a professor and universities as an executive and I found that, you know, it's hard to imagine two ecosystems that have moved to offer to each other than universities and corporations, but they don't work well at scale. And we looked around and we saw corporate America spend $28 billion on workforce education but not a single ceo C. H. R. O. Was happy. So we started in stride with like minded co founders, which is the TPG Rice fund and the Arizona State University with the goal of helping large organizations provide workforce education to their employees in a way that they also achieve business goals. And the central thesis here is by doing that they're achieving business and social impact and the manifestation of that is to think about learners and employees as the same thing. They are good fiduciaries, but also good citizens And they do well and do good. So we've been around for close to four years now. We serve over 42 large organizations about 20 Fortune 500 and I'm proud to say that as a result of a platform, the employees in our partners have avoided over $630 million of student debt. So that's what we do. Well done in a short time to just a few years Laurie and I want to jump to you, you're innovating in a very different space. You're in climate tech. This is actually your second climate tech startup and attracted the likes of Bill Gates as an investor. Um, you don't have a product yet because this kind of innovation takes time a few years out. So this is a long term play. Can you just tell everybody what you're doing in steel production, how that creates um CO two emissions and what you're doing to curb it. Yes, thank you and thank you all for the opportunity to be here. This is incredibly exciting to be in a room filled with the decision makers and the people with the power to have an impact that we're striving for. So at Hertha metals, we are d carbon izing iron and steel production at the core of what we do is driving impact. The global climate change worsens global inequities. And so if we can solve climate change, we can do our part and many don't know that steel is actually one of the biggest industrial emitters out their steel production. It results in more than 10% of global CO two emissions. And we're not getting rid of steel. Right? Steel is the backbone to modern industry, it's material we need that supports our infrastructure. Uh, so we're addressing this by being able to make our iron and steel thing we use every day everywhere, It will be the same product. But instead of using coal, which is how we make primary steel today, we use hydrogen and renewable electricity. So 95% less co two emissions than what we're used to and how have you found um raising money for a venture? That sounds game changing, but it's also takes time, a lot of effort. Um, I assume some tinkering, maybe some failures. Um, as long as success is to get to the product stage, not every investor would wait for that. Yes, it definitely takes patient capital. But our investors understand with high risk and long time periods come this enormous reward. Uh, and at Hertha metals, we truly believe that we have the game changing process to, to pay up that reward. So it takes a special kind of investor and you're seeing more of them in the climate tech space where this isn't a software uh, play right. This isn't a typical Silicon Valley startup. You need that 10 year plus. Uh, fund life and investors like Bill Gates who have founded breakthrough energy uh, understand that mindset and have proven it to be a successful mindset in how they invest as it has already resulted in returns, but patient capital needed. So this gets a little bit into the es de conversation in which that's become a little bit of a charged word. You told me I'm not allowed to ask you if woke, but here I am asking um, is it woke? Yeah, No. Yes, she's not work. So I'll go on record saying that the, the, I'll come back to the central thesis of why we started our company as also the principle behind how yes, she should be done. Well, see I run my company, I have a board, I have an obligation to my shareholders. I'm on a public board. I'm also in a private board. I expect the ceos to deliver on shareholder returns. The whole idea behind you know, in stride and the right way to do E. S. G. Is to recognize that this is not our this is ad you can achieve all that you are charged to do by your shareholders in a way that you also deliver on E. S. G. Right? So I'll give you a few examples from some of the customers we serve. We have retail customers who are really struggling with attrition in retail industry. A good year is when you have a tradition of 30% a bad year is 50%. Now, what would happen if you did not take that attrition as a given, you said, I will invest in your career aspirations, your re skilling your up, skilling and as a result of my investment in your career, I build an equity with you that you want to stay with the company longer. It helps the employee, it helps the learner as well. Um, so the right way to do it is to think about, as I said business and E. S. G. Goals not in contradiction with each other. It's when you think about this in the context of our, that's when you get the phrases like the one you said, but in and adding anything to and at the end of the company mission is really hard to do. Doing one thing. Well, it's hard enough been doing too. Is that really reasonable to expect executives? Actually, that's what C E O S do. We manage short term and long term goals. We serve the interests of customers, employees and shareholders. We we do a lot of ants across geography across different time frames. What this is saying is it is not as simple as picking up an E. S. G. Goal, figuring out KPI s and not linking with your business priorities once you do them. Well, this is just one more and you have to work with, but we have V. S. C E. O. S. I hope all CeoS will agree here have done that forever. And how do you both align um, your employees, your boards, um, your executive team with all the right KPI Well, the starting point for that if done the right way is you have to clearly articulate the purpose of the organization. So when I started in stride, uh, we were in a ford f, we work, I was all by myself, which was a bit of a transition from running a multi billion dollar business at Disney. And so the first thing I did was I wrote what I call as the founders memo and we said, what's the purpose? What's the vision? What are our values and what is it that I can articulate to customers to shareholders, investors to our partners in a way that it makes sense to them. I think that that definition is important. Uh and and every time I go to my customers, I recruit a new employee. I tell them very clearly, look, we are in stride is about helping organizations drive life changing benefits to their employees in a way that it also benefits the organization. I have not had anybody had any problem with that. And Lori and how about you? I would agree with what said, you definitely should be starting with the mission. What is the mission of your company and what do you do? And note that it's not too late for you to change your mission, right? You might be an established company and you're saying well for so long we've advertised ourselves in this way, times are changing and if you're successful, you should change with the times correct, Which means your mission should also transform accordingly. Uh and we also, um thankfully a lot of people believe in the same thing. We believe it hurt the metals, which is, you can drive profitability while also creating a better planet uh and securing the longevity of humanity, right? Um, so mission alignment and I believe that it doesn't need to be uh either profitability and some of our shareholders being um appeased versus the other of us doing what we want to do in terms of our impact, but there is alignment and you just need to really be thoughtful and considerate in thinking about how to align uh your stakeholders towards one vision and value and in fact you're a tech investor yourself um you sit on boards, you've obviously been a Disney um how are you seeing large companies um succeed in their E. S. G. Initiatives in doing good is also being good for business well. Uh So in addition to that, I also teach a course at USC called the Digital Foundation for Business Innovation. And I always tell my students that remember innovation in large organizations is idea meeting commercialization. You should not forget that and there's a little bit of that with PSG goals as well. Right, so once again I'm going to repeat my previous answer but basically it is figure out the purpose of the organization walk back from that and and design a mechanism in which we achieve both goals. Let's take a few examples. So imagine being in the conversation with the Ceo for health care system and articulating and a program to invest in their employees in a way that you can reduce their tradition of nurses. We, as a country are short of half a million nurses, every time a nurse leaves a leading healthcare system just to backfill cost is $60,000. Right, imagine you're in conversation with the financial services ceo or industrial ceo. All of them are worried about what it would mean when technology becomes the core of the business and the employees do not have basic digital literacy. So a conversation with them around upscaling the employees on basic digital literacy that gets frankly good resonance across the entire ecosystem. The challenges when we try to take the short path, when we don't do the hard consultative top down work and try to understand what business is trying to achieve and come up with KPI is that may or may not make sense. So it's basically working bachelor business goal and then designing the KPI and how do you get the employees to buy in The once again, it starts with an education like workplace education. A lot of companies offer that, but not everybody takes them up on it. Like how do you get them involved? So let's start with why it is not working in the way it is done today. So typically when corporate America spends $28 billion, why is it not successful? Well, the reason it's not successful is number one, it is not linked to the strategic goals. No two. As a result of that, there is not real support behind those programs, tuition reimbursement is more talked about than actually adopted. Less than 2% people adopted and those who adopt do not find this changes their career trajectory in a meaningful way. So what we try to do is to say, look number one, we will always position this investment in employee education with the goals of the organization. Two is we will provide education opportunities that drive real outcomes. The employees are not entrusted in enrollments. The employees are entrusted in changing their career trajectory outcomes are important. You have to really articulate how it will help. And in our case we also try to make sure that the platform, which in our case is a technology enabled platform, creates a seamless experience to the learners so that they don't have a problem. Um, welcome. We're so glad you're here. You're here depressed. Apologies. Been traveling since one PM today, but hopefully the dedication, we appreciate it. Now you're in sunny florida. Just relax and have some wine and ask you some questions. It's gonna be great. Um, so welcome. So for those of you who don't know a memo is the founder of a billion dollar startup called Isuzu. Um, he is trying to help correct the racial wealth gap here in this country And I was wondering if you could tell them a little bit about how you're doing that and also how your upbringing um led you to this mission. Absolutely. So it's just really stemmed from a personal experience. I grew up in the slums of Lagos Nigeria. I lost my father at the age of two and I was raised by my mother and to verify the sisters. One thing my mother fundamentally believed in was just the importance of education she afforded my school fees to one of the finest high schools in the land. And that's what led me to this magical place called America. I immigrated from 80 degree weather in Lagos to negative 22 degrees in Minnesota. It was, it was a really cast a building experience. And when I told my New York and L. A friends, I go deer huntin and ice fishing. Um, you know, they always confused. Um, but during that transition, something important happened, my mother and I did not have a credit score. We walked into one of the largest financial institutions to borrow money and were turned away and had to go borrow money from a predatory lender at over 400% interest rate. My mother upon my father's wedding ring. We borrowed money from church members and that's how we got started in the United States. So really inspired by that experience, We started Susan on three core premises no matter where you come from, the color of your skin and particularly your financial identity shouldn't determine where you end up in the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen And the way we make that up and it's really simple when you pay your mortgage today. That data is reflected in your credit profile when you pay your rent. Unfortunately it isn't reflected. So we are the plumbers that essentially created the technology that capture your rental payments data and reporting to the consumer rating agencies. We walk with 60% of the largest owners and operators of real estate in the United States, Uh, to capture this data across, you know, all 50 states in the Union. And what was seen is really simple. The biggest driver of wealth in this country, right is home ownership. And what we are doing now is helping people establish their credit score and then giving them access to other quality financial product. It's essentially unlock them getting a home one day, affordable credit card, the card notes to be able to go to a good school. Um, and you know, was a 30 person shop 18 months ago. Now, it's 200 people valued at a billion. And we're just getting started amazing. Um, and an incredible mission. Um, there's obviously a racial wealth gap in startups as well, which, you know, well, um, could you tell us, given that backdrop, how has your experience been scaling to this level and um, how would you see it changing? Is it getting better? Yeah. Just to level set on the statistic out there, less than 2% of capital go to black and minority and women founders for black women or women. That's .0002%. you know, we always talk about thinking outside the box, but the folks that get to play and manage capital are inside the box. If you're interested in solving the world's toughest challenges, we need to consider folks that outside, I'm an outsider, have nothing to lose. And I'm really, really incentivized to think about our folks from where I come from, I realize the true american potential and that's what I'm squarely focused on. So, you know, my own experience of capital, My co founder and I spoke to 326 investors have said, no, you know, I used to walk out Goldman Sachs Pricewaterhousecoopers. It was one of the cosponsors here. Um, and you know, before I left PWc done $32 billion in deal value. You know, m and a walking with the biggest institutions, but that resume and that pedigree didn't mean anything when I was raising capital. Um, and one of the funniest story was when we started a su su and we were, we just won a $20,000 contract, the first ever one. Um, my co founder, and because credit cards were maxed out at over $100,000. 1 of our favorite places was Dennis. So the idea was, you know, we couldn't afford a hotel room and we decided to go to a Dennis got the Grand Slam. Uh uh, it's that night. And unfortunately, um, you know, we're not perpetual motion machines, so we dozed off and we were kicked out of it, Dennis. Um, and I say that story, um, just make it very real that are sending from zero to a billion dollars isn't just this fad, right? It took a lot of hard work. And for those coming behind us, my job is to outperform um not with rhetoric, but the record um that when you invest in black and other minority founders, um your capital is going to be put to good use, but above all, change the narrative, which I think this forum is all about each and every one of you are here because I think your justice capitalist, you believe on the premise that you can do good and do well and there might know means mutually exclusive. And that's the narrative I want to tell. I'm sick and tired of the 2% of the .002%, I can care less about that. I want to create a narrative whereby when you invest in folks like me, you create $10,100 billion dollar firms and companies like there will be a force to reckon with while doing good and doing well alright. Um and that's where we will leave it. Thank you all for all the hard work you're doing and innovating in your field

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