At General Catalyst, we look for founders who are reshaping enormous, important markets with innovative ideas and cutting-edge technology. One such market is consumer debt, currently one of the biggest pain points for American households. There is over $5T in non-mortgage consumer debt in the U.S., with more than $1.2T in high-interest credit card debt alone, according to the Federal Reserve. At the same time, assets like home equity are sitting at a record high: there is over $35T of home equity in the U.S. today, up from $9T just 15 years ago. While we believe debt is essential for a well-functioning economy, we also believe that there’s room to help everyone optimize their cost of capital against their assets held. This could go a long way in transforming consumer finance and helping many live healthier financial lives. 

What if there were an easy way for you to secure assets like home equity to lower the cost of liabilities, like credit card debt? More broadly, what if you had a personal CFO always ensuring your monthly payments are as low as possible, whether they be for mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, or personal loans? When there's an opportunity to lower your payments, this CFO could help you do it. 

The Aven team is working to make this vision a reality. Aven is on a mission to help everyone lower their cost of capital, which is why we partnered with them by co-leading their Series D and are doubling down in their Series E.

‍Cutting Rates in Half Through Innovation

Aven is helping everyone save money, starting with their marquee product: the Aven Home Equity Card. Launched in 2022, it offers the flexibility of a credit card with the low interest rates of a home equity line of credit. By leveraging applied AI and a novel technology stack, Aven is able to package a small-dollar home equity line onto a credit card, cutting Annual Percentage Rates (APRs) in half for many consumers. To date, Aven has helped consumers save over $215M on interest rates.

The Aven Home Equity Card wasn't possible until recently. In-person notarizations, lengthy appraisal processes, and compliance burdens of innovating in the credit card-meets-mortgage worlds are just a few things that made small-dollar lines unprofitable. Market changes after the pandemic created new possibilities: remote notarizations, improved remote appraisals, and better micro-market housing data for underwriting, for example.

The Aven team saw an opening for what they believe is a new category and built very innovative technology to launch the Aven Home Equity Card. They built a robotic arm for remote notarizations with unique signature stamps, developed multiple automated systems to ensure strict compliance across origination, servicing, and customer support, and worked with cutting-edge capital markets participants to help investors understand this new product. The result is a product you can sign up for in minutes that cuts rates in half and earns 2% rewards on all purchases.

And credit cards are just the beginning. The technology stack Aven built for the Aven Home Equity Card contains primitives that enable the rapid launch of new products. Mortgage refinancing is next, with more offerings in the works that maintain Aven's delightful user experience while delivering efficiency and savings.

“Aven’s mission is to provide homeowners with the lowest-cost, most transparent access to capital. This raise helps us to accelerate building the first machine banking platform - one that will radically transform consumer finance. We’re excited to have General Catalyst with us on our journey to drive the biggest reduction in the cost of capital in American history.” - Sadi Khan

Building a Category-Defining Platform

What excites us about Aven is not only their compelling consumer proposition but their leadership in a new category. Aven has grown rapidly while maintaining financial discipline and credit quality, which is incredibly uncommon. User engagement is showing exciting signals: Aven has the high engagement of credit cards and the balance build of a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC), with equivalent or superior risk performance in both categories. And they’re expanding the market: 80% of Aven’s customers have previously never had a HELOC but are finding value in a home-equity-backed credit card that saves them money. 

At General Catalyst, we’ve had the privilege of partnering with great teams that have built compound products and iconic companies. At the rate the Aven team is shipping, we believe they will soon offer the most compelling product suite for American homeowners and help more people lower their cost of capital.