Turning America’s Largest Expense into a Strategic Asset

Bilt, the groundbreaking fintech platform based in New York and founded by Ankur Jain, has raised $250 million in its latest Series D round, catapulting its valuation to $3.1 billion. This milestone confirms Bilt’s position at the forefront of reimagining how Americans think about rent - not as a passive cost, but as an active gateway to wealth creation and lifestyle benefits.

Led by General Catalyst, with continued support from United Wholesale Mortgage and other top-tier investors, the round underscores strong confidence in Bilt’s mission: enabling renters to build credit, earn rewards, and unlock financial opportunity through an expense they already pay each month.

From Rent to Rewards: A System Shift

Historically, rent has been the single largest monthly expense for most Americans, yet unlike other major payments, it generated no points, no perks, and no path to ownership. Bilt changed that dynamic. The platform allows renters to pay with credit cards without incurring transaction fees and earn valuable points redeemable for travel, fitness memberships, shopping - even a mortgage down payment.

This simple premise unlocked a massive behavioral shift. When something as routine as paying rent becomes a source of tangible value, users engage more deeply, think differently about their financial future, and stay loyal to the platform that empowered that shift.

And in the midst of this shift lies an overlooked but powerful insight that other founders should study closely: category-defining innovation doesn’t always come from loud disruption - it often emerges from reframing the friction users have quietly tolerated. Rent, for generations, was just accepted as money out the door. Nobody questioned it. But that passive resignation was actually fertile ground. Jain and his team saw that silence as signal - not absence of need, but normalization of pain. They didn’t wait for users to ask for a solution. They saw the opportunity hiding in what people had stopped noticing.

When you can turn a fixed cost into a flywheel - when users earn value where they previously expected none - product adoption becomes natural. It feels less like an add-on and more like a correction to something that should’ve worked this way all along.

Rapid Expansion and Strategic Impact

Today, Bilt’s platform is integrated into over 4 million rental units across the United States. It partners with leading property management firms and national landlords to provide seamless payment options that benefit both tenants and operators. Tenants earn rewards; landlords gain improved retention, better on-time payments, and a value-added service that differentiates their offering in a highly competitive housing market.

This kind of embedded ecosystem didn’t just evolve organically. It was architected by aligning incentives across the entire rental economy. And it highlights Bilt’s deeper ambition: not just to improve financial services for renters, but to reshape the renter-landlord relationship in a way that benefits both sides.

Building Wealth Through Everyday Payments

Bilt users can transfer their points to airline and hotel partners, shop with exclusive retail brands, access fitness programs, and - perhaps most notably - convert points into equity for a future home. In doing so, Bilt effectively bridges the gap between renting and owning, creating a pathway that no other platform has successfully achieved at scale.

This financial utility has made Bilt more than a fintech app. For many users, it is becoming a foundational tool for wealth-building - a rare intersection of lifestyle and financial planning, powered by something as habitual as paying rent.

The Vision Behind the Platform

Ankur Jain’s background at Kairos HQ and his ongoing mission to tackle systemic life challenges - from healthcare to housing - comes into full focus with Bilt. His ability to find overlooked friction and convert it into systemic leverage is what makes Bilt more than a clever rewards play. It’s a reinvention of a stagnant experience that affects nearly every adult in the U.S.

As Jain puts it, the idea was never just to give renters perks - it was to give them power.

Looking Ahead

With this latest round, Bilt is poised to scale aggressively. Plans include expanding its property partner network, launching new financial tools tailored to renters, and deepening reward partnerships across travel, real estate, and wellness sectors.

The company also continues to invest in education - helping renters understand how to build credit, manage debt, and prepare for homeownership. These tools are critical in converting users from passive participants in the rental market into active financial stakeholders in their own future.