Boom Pay, a New York startup helping renters access funding with better credit ratings, has closed a $4.5 million funding round led by Chicago venture firm Starting Line.
“Boom is building the financial hub for the 110 million renters in the US. We’ve started by creating rent payment tools that enable renters to pay on the schedule they define and build credit in the process,” Rob Whiting, the company’s co-founder and CEO, wrote on LinkedIn. Whiting previously co-founded Haystack Health, which finds candidates for clinical trials.
Prior investors in Boom include New York’s Everywhere Ventures, Gigamesh Ventures and Company Ventures; Clocktower Technology Ventures, of Santa Monica, Calif.; Chingona Ventures, of Chicago; San Francisco-based Affirm Syndicate and Siesta Ventures, of Newark, Ohio.
Angel investors include:
- Plaid co-founders Zachary Perret and William Hockey;
- Landis co-founders Cyril Berdugo and Tom Petit;
- Dart Technologies co-founder Michael Chow;
- Mint House co-founder Will Lucas;
- Creditas founder Sergio Furio;
- Nova Credit co-founder Misha Esipov; and
- Todd Benson, co-founder of Citi private equity.
Commercial Real Estate
MacKenzie Companies
Law
Nemphos Braue
Financial Services / Investment Firms
Chesapeake Corporate Advisors
Commercial Real Estate
Monday Properties
Venture Capital
Blue Delta Capital Partners
Internet / Technology
Foxtrot Media
Fueled by the Pandemic
Whiting and Kirill Moizik, who is head of engineering at the three-year-old startup, co-founded Boom. Moizik, an alumnus of Israel’s Technion, has previously worked at Intel and startups such as Zetz and Tapingo.
When Whiting helped two of his family members navigate housing instability during job losses during the Covid-19 pandemic, he recognized a dire market need for a service like Boom Pay that could help an estimated 100 million renters build credit scores and access funding in emergencies. Since the early 2000s, rent has increased four times faster than income for the majority of renters, Boom Pay says. But tools available to renters and landlords alike to ease the process has stagnated.
Boom helps its customers report their rent histories to all three major credit bureaus — Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. In its short history, Boom acquired Alpaca, an online property rental platform designed to help people find new homes in New York, in 2022.
