Prism Data Raises $5 Million in Seed Funding from Obvious Ventures, Citi Impact Fund and Others

As the U.S. introduces open banking, Prism helps businesses harness bank data to improve consumer underwriting

NEW YORK, October 23, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Prism Data, a leading cash flow underwriting and data analytics platform, announced today that it has raised $5 million in seed funding. This round was led by Obvious Ventures, with participation from Citi Impact Fund and Core Innovation Capital. Prism's new funding follows a previously announced strategic investment from Samsung Next.

This new capital infusion will empower Prism Data to further expand its team and enhance its product suite?including the market-leading CashScore®?in response to growing demand from financial institutions, fintechs and other businesses for cash flow underwriting solutions. Prism's technologies, developed over nearly a decade, have demonstrated the power of consumer cash flow underwriting to lower loss rates, expand access to credit, and greatly enhance visibility into a consumer's current financial position. Prism allows any business to quickly and easily translate raw banking data into actionable insights and risk scores.

Demand for Prism's technology is a response to rising credit card and loan delinquencies, which have prompted many mainstream financial institutions to significantly tighten their lending criteria to more closely manage risk. Additionally, a new proposed rule that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released last week promises to make it easier and safer for consumers to share their personal bank data with financial service providers; with help from Prism, those providers can utilize this consumer-permissioned bank data to expand access to credit, improve decision-making, and power new products and services.

"Open banking creates new possibilities for evaluating creditworthiness," said Jason Rosen, Prism's CEO and Founder. "Prism's infrastructure transforms that potential into reality, equipping clients with analytical advantages to strengthen their businesses and better serve consumers. We're thankful for the support from Obvious Ventures, Citi Impact Fund and our other investors in helping write Prism's next chapter."

Prism's products streamline the structuring, analysis and interpretation of open banking data, providing actionable insights clients can use to enhance underwriting strategies, reduce first-party fraud, optimize portfolio management, and more. Similar to conventional credit models like FICO or VantageScore, lenders can leverage Prism's CashScore and other highly predictive tools to more precisely assess credit risk across various consumer contexts?from credit cards and personal loans to mortgages and auto loans.

"Prism Data embodies our philosophy of investing in companies that harness technology to deliver more world-positive products and services," said Vishal Vasishth, a managing director for Obvious Ventures. "We share their vision for building a more inclusive and efficient financial system that better serves both consumers and lenders."

"As an alternative to traditional credit scoring models, cash flow underwriting can unlock valuable insights into consumer behavior. Prism's proprietary algorithm empowers underwriters to make better informed credit decisions by extracting critical information from financial transaction data that helps them determine credit worthiness," said Jeff Meyers, Director, Citi Impact Fund. "Jason Rosen and his team bring together the right mix of industry expertise, technical skill set and regulatory knowledge as they aim to make credit underwriting more objective, efficient and inclusive for all Americans."

In addition to this new funding, Prism Data also announced that it has hired Ben Donahue as a senior sales executive. Donahue has more than a dozen years of experience in sales and product development, with a particular strength in helping financial institutions improve their underwriting using cash flow underwriting and consumer banking data. He previously served as the head of sales for Nova Credit, and more recently, as the vice-president of sales for Atom Finance.

Since its inception, Prism?which spun off from credit card and financial technology company Petal earlier this year?has signed more than 20 clients and partners and completed over two dozen successful pilots, including collaborations with some of the country's largest banks. In the months since its spinoff, Prism has announced industry partnerships with Plaid, Provenir and Zoot. To date, Prism's CashScore has been used to inform more than $2 billion in real-world credit originations for hundreds of thousands of consumers.

About Prism Data:

Prism Data provides essential open banking infrastructure powering the next generation of credit scoring.

Prism's market-leading suite of products?including its proprietary CashScore?enable financial institutions, fintechs and other companies to use advanced open banking analytics and cash flow underwriting to derive powerful new insights from consumer-permissioned deposit account transaction data. Prism clients can use those insights to accurately predict credit default risk, score missing- and thin-file customers, identify first-party fraud, and better manage credit risk in their existing portfolios. prismdata.com

Media Contact

Matt Graves, Prism Data, 1 415-290-3503, [email protected]

SOURCE Prism Data