Jan 12, 2022

RET Ventures, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Victory Park Capital, and Gaingels Join Existing Investors Canaan, Khosla Ventures, QED Investors, Camber Creek, Assurant Ventures, and Context Ventures Azibo, the free, one-stop-shop financial services platform for the rental property market, announced a $19M Series A round led by SVB Capital, with participation from new investors RET Ventures, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Victory Park Capital, and Gaingels, as well as existing investors Canaan, Khosla Ventures, QED Investors, Camber Creek, Assurant Ventures, and Context Ventures. The Series A funding will enable Azibo to hire new talent for the company’s Tahoe-Reno and San Francisco Bay Area teams, accelerate product innovation, and scale go-to-market efforts. In 2022, the team will continue to focus on building out the platform for the entire rental property ecosystem — enabling landlords to seamlessly interact with renters, property managers, and vendors — as well as developing new features that empower renters to improve their financial health. Azibo has seen strong traction since its platform launch, acquiring over 10,000 customers, reaching more than $130 million annual run rate in platform transaction volume, and achieving double-digit monthly growth in 2021. Azibo’s offerings include rent collection, bill payments, and expense management; full-service commercial banking; nationally licensed insurance; and lending solutions for mortgages and short-term loans. The company also created the Azibo Marketplace, a trusted network of partners offering best-in-class services for landlords and renters. “Since launching the company, we’ve focused on building an all-in-one platform that simplifies rental property finances and levels the playing field for independent landlords and everyone they interact with,” said Chris Hsu, CEO and Co-Founder of Azibo. “With this funding, we will accelerate our priorities of delivering innovation on our core products, driving commercial success, creating awareness in the market, and building out our amazing team.” “Azibo has brought needed innovation to an underserved market, demonstrating momentum at the intersection of FinTech and real estate,” said  Beau Laskey , Managing Partner at SVB Capital. “We are impressed by the team’s deep understanding of the rental property sector, and we’re excited to help them get to the next level.” “Real estate technology products have proliferated in recent years, but independent landlords have largely been overlooked. Azibo’s powerful platform is poised to transform this massive market,” said Aaron Ru , Vice President at RET Ventures. “The company’s robust product suite is already delivering tangible value to its users, and we’re proud to join the company’s journey as it improves the financial side of operations for a growing number of residential landlords.” FinTech veteran  Wontaek Shin  joins Azibo as Chief Technology Officer Azibo also announced that Wontaek Shin, a proven FinTech engineering leader who previously drove innovation at SoFi, Figure, and Auction.com, has joined the company as CTO. Wontaek brings with him two key engineers — Kenji High as Principal Engineer focused on frontend engineering, and JK Paek as Senior Staff Engineer focused on microservice development — and will continue to grow the team in 2022. “Wontaek is the critical missing piece to the Azibo senior leadership team and is uniquely positioned to help lead and scale our technology and innovation,” said Hsu. “He comes with a reputation of being the go-to guy to tackle big challenges and get things done. Wontaek’s deep FinTech and marketplace expertise, as well as his ability to develop teams, manage third party integrations, and architect powerful software will be a huge asset to the company. I can’t wait to work closely with him to deliver exciting innovations to our customers.”