CUPERTINO, California–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Tellus, a real estate-powered smart savings platform, today announced a $16 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, following a $10 million SAFE. All-Stars Investments, Alumni Ventures, Decent Capital, Vectr Ventures, West Arrow and Westwood Ventures also participated in the Seed, along with notable angel investors such as the co-founders of YouTube, Lime Bike and Sereno Group Real Estate. Tellus will use the proceeds to scale its team and continue to build out the platform.
Tellus was founded in 2016 to enable more people and families to take greater control of their personal finances and address the growing wealth gap. Today, with inflation at a 40-year high, some estimates claim that the current rate of inflation will halve savings in about 8.7 years. While people need more opportunities to put their money to work to accumulate interest and value than ever, the average savings account pays just 0.21% on balances, according to the FDIC. Tellus offers an alternative by leveraging the US single family loans to give users higher returns than regular savings accounts, along with access to regular withdrawals.
“Tellus gives people access to savings through a method previously only available to the ultra-wealthy: mortgage income,” said Rocky Lee, co-founder of Tellus. “We built Tellus to bring together everyday consumers’ needs for passive income and attractive prices.”
“We reward people for saving and developing healthy money habits,” added Tellus co-founder T Zhu. “We want to help everyone build wealth through real estate. Historically, real estate has proven to be resilient in periods of inflation. Leveraging that, and without giving up liquidity to do so, is the challenge.”
Tellus rewards users with powerful savings solutions that on average pay up to 22 times more than traditional savings accounts.
The company generates returns by providing single-family home loans to American borrowers in prime cities. Home loans are always over-mortgaged and the interest is allocated to customers through the app. The app also helps users budget funds, set financial goals and accelerate savings, and modernize wealth building through real estate.
“The Tellus team leverages its unique insights into the interplay between real estate, savings and lending to help consumers’ savings work harder for them,” said Jeff Jordan, general partner at a16z. “We are excited to support Rocky and T as they continue to build out the product and the team.”
ABOUT TELLUS
Tellus is a smart savings platform powered by real estate. With Tellus Boost, savers can budget smarter, set goals and save faster through their own actions on the platform. Tellus’ mission is to unlock the returns from single-family homes so that consumers can earn passive income, save faster for a down payment and access mortgage loans to buy a home.
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