Nova Credit Raises $45M Series C Financing to Scale Cash Flow Underwriting and Verification Solutions Across the Credit Industry

NEW YORK—October 17, 2023— Nova Credit, the data analytics company enabling businesses to grow responsibly by harnessing alternative credit data, announced it raised $45 million in Series C funding. The capital helps Nova Credit to further broaden its product offering beyond cross-border credit reporting and scale Cash Atlas™, the industry’s leading solution for cash flow underwriting and verification of income and employment. The expansion enables the company’s partners to grow within risk appetite by incorporating an expanded suite of open finance data pipelines, unique datasets, and category-defining analytics and compliance applications.

Since raising its Series B in 2020, Nova Credit has grown revenues by 10x and partnered with dozens of innovative companies, including HSBC, Verizon, Scotiabank, Earnest, and Yardi. The company has also accelerated international expansion, bringing its products to service newcomer corridors destined for Canada, the U.K., the U.A.E., and Singapore. Additionally, Nova Credit has more than tripled volumes since the start of 2023. With strong expertise working with consumer credit data, the Nova Credit team is poised to maintain this momentum by introducing a whole new range of solutions—from new-to-credit and thin-file underwriting to customized KYC and verification solutions. 

Open finance (1) has unleashed an era in which any business that extends credit can understand its customers in a far more personalized and tailored way. Cash flow underwriting is a powerful application of open finance that fills in the gaps where traditional credit reporting is limited or absent to underwrite over 60 million new-to-credit, new-to-country, and other thin-file consumers. However, unlocking the full potential of cash flow underwriting requires a unique set of capabilities that must be purpose-built for credit and compliance professionals. Central to these capabilities are bank-grade infrastructure and analytics that generate differentiated, reliable, and compliant insights from datasets across many consumer, alternative, and traditional sources. 

For more than seven years, Nova Credit has perfected the art and science of harnessing the power of open finance to enable leading institutions like American Express, HSBC, SoFi, Scotiabank, and Verizon to grow responsibly. Through the Credit Passport®, the company built data pipelines into credit bureaus around the world, seamlessly translating a range of data schemas, attributes, and scores into FCRA-compliant reports for lenders to reach new-to-country populations. Along the way, it built a proprietary analytics layer that helps credit professionals extract value from new data sources, all within a compliance framework that meets the regulatory and security standards of premier financial institutions. 

“Open finance data has been available for decades, but the industry has failed to assemble it into a suite of products that lenders can easily use to improve their customer onboarding and credit workflows,” said Misha Esipov, Co-founder and CEO of Nova Credit. “For years, Nova Credit has pioneered the use of consumer-permissioned data to enable the world’s most reputable businesses to approve more customers without compromising their risk and compliance standards. While cross-border credit remains critical to our strategy, we’re excited to broaden our offering and tackle a new set of industry challenges long unsolved. This new capital fortifies our position to continue being a dependable partner to the many banks and lenders we serve and accelerates the pace of innovation in an industry very much in need of change.”

Nova Credit’s unique combination of data, analytics, and compliance, coupled with streamlined onboarding and credit workflows, delivers a one-of-a-kind infrastructure layer that helps lenders build superior products with the best that open finance has to offer. Nova Credit has developed the world’s foremost expertise in credit data connectivity, standardization, analytics, and compliance required to unlock the power of open finance to benefit a broader base of consumers and lender use cases. The vision behind this winning combination is shared by lead investor Canapi Ventures, who—along with other investors—are backing Nova Credit to become the leading data analytics player in the cash flow underwriting space. Additional investors include existing backers General Catalyst, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Y Combinator, and Avid Ventures, as well as new investors Geodesic Capital, Harmonic Growth Partners, Radiate Capital, and Socium Ventures (Cox Enterprises).

"The credit landscape is evolving quickly right before our eyes. Winning solutions must strike a delicate balance between credit data and regulatory expertise, rapid product agility, and uncompromising enterprise reliability,” said Jeffrey Reitman, General Partner, Canapi Ventures. “Over the last few years, Nova Credit has demonstrated time and time again its ability to transform complex credit data challenges into scalable industry solutions that are leveraged by financial partners to expand the aperture of customers they can serve. Nova has assembled the team, tech, and vision to usher in cash flow underwriting at scale. We could not be more excited to double down alongside this roster of investors in supporting Nova."

To learn more about cash flow underwriting, cross-border credit, or Nova Credit, please visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn and X.

(1) the technological, regulatory, and practical advances facilitating the access and sharing of consumer financial data to enable more personalized financial products and services.

ABOUT NOVA CREDIT

Nova Credit is a data analytics company that enables businesses to grow responsibly by harnessing alternative credit data. The company leverages its unique set of data sources, bank-grade infrastructure and compliance framework, and proprietary credit expertise to help lenders fill the gaps that exist in traditional credit analytics. Nova Credit serves as the bridge between data and credit excellence, providing a comprehensive suite of solutions designed to give lenders a competitive edge in the open finance era. Its cross-border credit solution, Credit Passport®, and cash flow underwriting and verification solution, Cash Atlas™, are used by leading organizations like American Express, Verizon, HSBC, SoFi, Scotiabank, and Yardi. Nova Credit is backed by investors including Canapi Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst, and Index Ventures as well as executives from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Citi. Learn more at https://www.novacredit.com or reach out to connect@novacredit.com.