Today I’m thrilled to share that RenoFi has closed a $22 million Series B funding round, led by Fifth Wall - the largest asset manager investing at the intersection of real estate and technology - with meaningful participation from Progressive Insurance and other new investors. This round brings our total capital raised to $65 million and marks the beginning of the next big chapter for RenoFi.
The round also drew support from HighSage Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Flintlock Capital, and Gaingels, with continued participation from our existing backers Canaan, First Round Capital, Curql, and TruStage Ventures. And in what I think is one of the most meaningful signals of all, several of our credit union partners - Ardent Credit Union, Chartway Credit Union, First Community Credit Union, and USALLIANCE Financial - invested in this round as well. When the lenders you work with every day want to put their own capital behind you, that says something.
The Problem Hasn’t Changed - But We Have
When Robert, Lee, and I founded RenoFi back in 2018, the thesis was simple: millions of homeowners want to renovate, but the way renovation financing works is broken. The most popular products - cash-out refinances and home equity loans - were never designed for renovations. They work fine if you’ve been in your home for 15 years and have tons of equity built up. But for the huge and growing segment of recent homebuyers who haven’t yet built significant equity? They’re stuck.
That thesis hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the scale and urgency. Rising interest rates over the past few years mean homeowners are locked into low first mortgage rates they absolutely do not want to give up. Refinancing is off the table. And yet the need to renovate - whether it’s an aging kitchen, an extra bedroom for a growing family, or turning a fixer-upper into a forever home - is only growing.
This is exactly the gap RenoFi was built to fill. Our Renovation HELOC is still the only home equity line of credit in the U.S. that uses a property’s After-Renovation Value (ARV) rather than just its current value. On average, that unlocks 11x more borrowing power for our homeowners - without refinancing their existing mortgage. No other lender or fintech offers this.
What We’ve Built
Since our Series A, the team has been heads-down building. Here’s where we stand today:
- 8,000+ renovation loans facilitated since inception
- $1.5B+ in funded loans and $2B in renovation project value analyzed through our proprietary platform
- Licensed in 48 states as a mortgage originator
- 10,000+ new homeowners per month coming to our platform
- We’ve grown to be the only one-stop shop for renovating homeowners, spanning purpose-built home equity loans, purchase loans, cash-out refinance, construction loans, land lot loans, renovation loans, personal loans, HEIs, and investment property financing
At the core of all of this is our technology platform - an orchestration layer for mortgage lending that pairs modern credit underwriting with a proprietary, AI-enabled renovation underwriting engine. We’re building toward near-real-time approvals for renovation loans, turning what has historically been a cumbersome, weeks-long process into a fast, modern experience.
What This Funding Means
This capital accelerates three things:
First, we’re tripling our retail team. We somewhat stumbled upon distributed retail as a channel for RenoFi, and it has been going far better than we ever imagined. We’re planning to bring on close to 100 renovation financing specialists this year. Our goal is ambitious but clear: when a loan officer joins RenoFi, we want them to more than double their business within 24 months. Our status as a credit union service organization (CUSO) gives our loan officers access to credit union products that are typically unavailable at big mortgage banks - and that’s a real competitive advantage.
Second, we’re expanding our credit union and embedded financing partnerships. We’ve built a network of nonprofit credit unions who work directly with us to serve homeowners, which allows us to offer the lowest rates and fees in the market. We’re essentially taking the best of a local credit union and making it available at a national scale.
Third, we’re accelerating our platform. The investment in our AI-enabled renovation underwriting engine is the key to our long-term lead in this space. A fully automated, end-to-end renovation underwrite is the goal, and this funding accelerates that effort significantly.
What Our Investors Are Saying
“RenoFi is transforming how homeowners finance and ultimately plan renovations,” said Dan Wenhold, Partner at Fifth Wall. “By enabling unmatched access to capital, particularly for the underserved segment of equity-light homeowners, RenoFi is making more renovations possible and unlocking growth across the $500 billion home improvement market. We are excited to partner with RenoFi to help them accelerate this momentum.”
Looking Ahead
When we announced our Series A back in 2022, I wrote about how every other major purchase in our lives has a smart, purpose-built financing solution - auto loans, mortgages, student loans - and how remarkably, that didn’t exist for home renovations. Four years later, that purpose-built product exists, it works, and it’s scaling.
The $500 billion home improvement market is massive, and we’re still just scratching the surface. With this new capital, we’re going to meaningfully scale our team, deepen our partnerships, and continue building the technology that makes it possible for millions of families to turn renovation plans into reality.
If you’re a homeowner thinking about renovating, see what you qualify for . If you’re a loan officer looking for a better platform, let’s talk. And if you’re a lender or partner interested in working with us - we’d love to hear from you.
Here’s to building what’s next.
- Justin Goldman, Co-Founder & CEO, RenoFi
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