These cofounders quit corporate jobs, took on $100K in credit card debt, and slept in a Denny’s—now their $1.2B company is backed by Serena Williams

Some of the world’s most successful companies revved up their success in the least glamorous of places. Google and Amazon were both launched out of their founders’ garages, and Microsoft was born out of a motel in New Mexico. 

While growing fintech company Esusu to be a billion-dollar success, its creators were even willing to sleep in a Denny’s to get their dream off the ground. 

“326 investors said no to us on the first go-around, myself and Samir [Goel] had $100,000 in credit card debt, we’ve been kicked out of a Denny’s because we couldn’t afford a hotel room,” Wemimo Abbey, cofounder and co-CEO of Esusu, tells Fortune. “We’ve been through very rough times on this journey, but it hasn’t stopped us.”

For years, the cofounders juggled rising credit checks and full-time jobs with scaling Esusu: a fintech company that helps renters build credit by reporting on-time rent payments to credit bureaus. What kept them resilient through those difficult times was dedication to a business mission they were intimately familiar with. 

Abbey was raised in what he calls the “slums” of Lagos, Nigeria, by his mother and two sisters. When his family uprooted to Michigan, they didn’t have a credit score, which led them to fall victim to a predatory lending scheme. After immigrating from New Delhi, India, fellow cofounder and co-CEO Samir Goel watched his parents toil to “pull off miracles” and survive their newfound life in the U.S. without a credit identity or savings account.

“We built Esusu on this idea that no matter where you come from, what you look like, or your financial identity, it should never determine where you end up in life,” Goel says. 

Today, Esusu is valued at $1.2 billion and reaches about 5 million rental units across all 50 U.S. states, representing around 12 million people. The company has raised more than $200 million in venture capital funding, with investments coming from the likes of SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Serena Williams’ firm Serena Ventures. 

Eight years in, 32-year-old Goel says Esusu is just getting started in creating a one-stop-shop product; but long gone are the days of couch hopping and maxing out credit cards. 

Quitting stable corporate jobs and racking up credit card debt to get Esusu running

In 2014, the fintech cofounders first met at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference. Abbey was running his global social venture called Clean Water for Everyone, while Goel was the cofounder of non-profit Transfernation that distributed excess food from benefit events to underserved New York City communities for years after its 2016 launch. 

They both had entrepreneurial chops and mission-driven mindsets, so they joined forces to help others build equitable credit by launching Esusu. 

“We decided to take a swing and move out of our comfort zone and fall forward, because we didn’t want to ask ourselves, ‘What if?’” Abbey, now 33, explains. “Looking back, a lot has happened, but I’m immensely grateful that we decided to go down that journey.”

Esusu was formally launched in 2018, but Abbey and Goel had already put in years of work. They were both juggling 9-to-5 jobs while getting the business off the ground; Abbey was working at PwC, and Goel was full-time at LinkedIn. And there were many “dark days,” Abbey says; hundreds of investors rejected their business, which the cofounders attribute to a lack of diverse VC leaders who didn’t have the lived experience to understand Esusu’s market opportunity. 

“We would talk to a lot of VCs, and they would ask us questions like, ‘Who cares about 40 points on a credit score? How many people are living paycheck to paycheck in this country?,” Goel recalls. “In their perception, it was a small segment of the market, whereas we’re actually building a product for the majority of Americans.” Nearly a quarter of Americans lived paycheck-to-paycheck in 2025, according to a Bank of American analysis, but 67% of U.S. citizens reported being in that financial rut, according to a report from PNC last year. 

Then came an inflection point; Abbey and Goel were up for promotions while Esusu was gaining traction with users, and VC firms wanted reassurance they were all all-in before investing. They ditched their full-time roles and dedicated their careers to Esusu; at first, they were bootstrapping every marketing campaign, flight, and customer meeting. After burning through their savings, the entrepreneurs turned to credit cards, racking up $100,000 in debt each. They couch surfed with friends and pinched pennies wherever they could, going so far as to sleep in a chain restaurant when funds were low.

While on a drive to catch a flight to San Francisco to raise money from potential investors, they ran short on covering a hotel room for the night. So they hatched a plan to sleep in a Denny’s while figuring out what they could actually afford to do next. The next day, they were within walking distance of homes belonging to the richest people in the world. 

“We begged the [Denny’s worker] to let us stay long enough to figure out a ride to the airport,” Goel says. “And then we were meeting an investor who lived down from Mark Zuckerberg.”

Gaining traction and $200 million in funding, serving millions of customers

Esusu has since found its footing with investors and millions of customers, becoming one of the first Black-owned fintech startups to reach unicorn status. 

Since 2018, it’s raised more than $200 million in funding, with investments from Motley Fool Ventures, Serena Ventures, Acumen Fund, Equity Alliance, and Impact America Fund. Just this past December, Esusu raised another $50 million in Series C funding, which valued the company at $1.2 billion.

The co-CEOs say these VCs have greater proximity to the issue Esusu is trying to solve—but their loyal clientele are at the center of its success.

“Even before investors took a bet on us, we could see from the actual people that we were serving that this product was valuable,” Goel explains, emphasizing their support was integral to Esusu’s success. “It was communities like the ones we came from—that was not something that could be replicated.”

The business’ 12 million customers and counting are all on a journey to strengthen their financial standing; in 2025 Esusu has helped 272,361 renters establish credit scores for the first time, a 34% year-over-year increase. Esusu customers also saw their credit scores rise by an average of 53 points last year, which the company says unlocks $77 billion in economic opportunity. 

VC firms once snubbed Esusu’s service of building credit through on-time rent payments, but now Americans are pursuing healthier financial lives through the success of the business—including the founders themselves. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com