Fintech startup Salaryo raises $5.5 million to provide security deposit financing for new coworking office members

Salaryo, a Techstars-backed startup and a fintech platform for U.S. freelancers and startups, has secured $5.5 million to to scale its first-to-market digital lending service for entrepreneurs and freelancers to over 500 coworking office locations across 20 new cities including Washington DC, Austin and Denver. The round, which was led by Ruby Ventures and Michael Ullmann’s investment group, brings the total funding to $6.3 million.

Founded in 2017 by Asaf Zagury, Adv., Itay Dressler, Omri Avisar, Tomer Pearl, and Yair Levy, Salaryo makes workspaces more accessible by allowing tenants to avoid traditional office security deposits. Salaryo helps freelancer looking to grow or a startup company ready to scale, to skip an unnecessary initial expenditure. By waiving or redeeming your deposit, set these locked funds free, freelancers and startup founders and can pour them back into their business.

Since launching its offering in 2018 in New York City, the company has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and freelancers, and its financing services is now supports tenants of 30 flexible workspace providers, including: WeWork, Industrious, Office Evolution and The Yard, spread across 500 locations in more than 20 cities in the US. Headquartered in New York City with an R&D center in Tel Aviv, Salaryo graduated from the Barclays Techstars fintech accelerator in 2017.

“Salaryo’s latest round of funding is a vote of confidence for the shared workspace industry and will enable us to remove the biggest concern for our customers – cash flow – so that they can focus on growing their business,” said Yair Levy CEO and co-founder of Salaryo. “Our goal is to support freelancers and entrepreneurs in taking their first steps by helping them afford an office space. The benefits of shared workspaces make access to them a fundamental way for people to do their best work. Even if a business is already settled in a coworking space, Salaryo will foster its growth by providing affordable and flexible credit on-demand.”

The Salaryo platform is the first digital lending option specializing in the coworking office sector. It features an automated experience that analyzes a tenant’s identity, lease, financial and professional information to make a decision in minutes. Once approved, Salaryo sends funds to the workspace and the tenant can move in within 24 hours.

“The innovative and dynamic Salaryo leadership team was quick to identify changes in the commercial real estate market,” said Ilan Rubinstein of Ruby Ventures. “We are very pleased to join forces with them, as we see the potential for this category to become a new asset class.”

The flexible office sector is experiencing double-digit annual growth and increased interest from large institutional investors, with WeWork’s IPO and two new funding rounds from competitors Knotel and Industrious announced in the last week. For years, WeWork and other leading flexible workspace providers have been toying with the idea of offering their tenants exclusive financial services. In the meantime, Salaryo has perfected this concept and is ready to scale its platform nationwide.

“The growing number of freelancers and small businesses requires new way of thinking in financial services,” said Michael Ullmann. “By financially supporting these entrepreneurs early on, Salaryo is well positioned to offer them additional financial services as they grow.”