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........

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