Hometap Equity Partners, LLC (Company)

It all started when a kid named Jeff was growing up in Brooklyn in a two-bedroom apartment with his family. Even though it was a small apartment, things were good. But it seemed to him that a lot of his friends who had houses to live in also had parents who were worried about money a lot. That “house-rich, cash-poor” realization stuck with him for a long time. Longer than he’d care to admit. Flash forward several decades to when one of our co-founders Max Campion approached Jeff with an insight that many young up-and-coming Americans with stable incomes were suffering from the same challenges that Jeff’s family witnessed back years ago.

As a longtime serial entrepreneur, Jeff often was looking for investors for one of his companies. Investors give money to guys like him in exchange for a little bit of ownership. This is money they hope will grow, but it’s also possible that the company tanks and they lose it. Meanwhile, homeowners — who actually have a physical, tangible asset — need to borrow money for things they want to do in life. And that brings more debt burden, worry, and stress, so the American Dream can sometimes become more like an American Nightmare. It didn’t make sense to them: why can’t someone treat homeowners like the CEOs of their own families, and invest in that home’s future value? That got them thinking that maybe they and some other smart, caring people (many of whom are homeowners themselves) should start a company to do just that. So we did. We call it Hometap.