Salaryo, a pioneering fintech platform for U.S. freelancers and startups, today announced it has raised $5.5 million in new funding from Ruby Ventures and Michael Ullmann’s investment group, bringing the total funding to $6.3 million. The company plans to use the funds 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.

Salaryo provides security deposit financing for new coworking office members and a flexible credit line for existing shared office tenants. Since launching its offering in 2018 in New York City, the company has successfully provided hundreds of entrepreneurs and freelancers with easier access to shared workspaces including WeWork, Industrious, Office Evolution, The Yard and others. Salaryo’s service provides cash relief for tenants, which helps flexible workspace operators boost membership sign ups and retention while reducing back-office bottlenecks from processing payments.

“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.

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“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.”

This new financing round is composed of both debt and equity financing reaching a total of $5.5 million. Canadian real estate and technology investment firm Ruby Ventures provided the debt financing, while Michael Ullmann’s investment group supplied the equity.

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SOURCE Salaryo