Real estate fintech startup Whale has raised $4 million in a seed funding round to expand its rental security deposit management platform.
The round was led by proptech-focused venture capital firm Camber Creek, with participation from Stackpoint, a venture studio that builds and invests in real estate technology companies. Whale said the capital will be used to improve its product and develop new platform integrations.
Founded in May 2022, Chicago-based Whale launched its product in June 2024. The company provides renters with FDIC-insured accounts for holding security deposits, while removing administrative and compliance responsibilities from landlords. The platform gives renters visibility into their funds and allows instant access, according to founder and chief executive Jamie Petraglia.
Whale was built at the intersection of fintech and proptech, Petraglia said, drawing on his experience across finance and real estate.
“It was a combination of my experience as an equity option trader and then getting into proptech,” Petraglia said. “I saw the opportunity in security deposits that really no one else did — that there’s $60 billion of security deposits just sitting there. And I saw that in a different, innovative way — to rebuild the financial infrastructure around deposits.”
Unlike traditional multifamily security deposit systems, Whale’s model ensures that landlords never hold tenant funds.
“The difference here is that the landlord never touches the money,” Petraglia said of Whale’s business model.
Instead, renters retain ownership of their security deposits in FDIC-insured, high-yield savings accounts that can be locked when required. Property operators receive guaranteed access to the funds if claims arise.
Security deposits legally belong to residents, even when landlords hold them. As a result, state and local regulations govern how these funds must be handled.
As a registered investment adviser regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Whale structures deposits as tenant-owned accounts. These accounts offer yields that can reach up to seven times the national average, along with real-time visibility and immediate access when renters move out, provided there are no claims.
“Once the resident puts their money into their own account, we send a digital confirmation back to the landlord,” explained Petraglia. “The landlord sees that they fulfilled the obligation of the deposit, but they never hold the money. So all the liability is off their plate. All the administrative work comes off their plate free of cost, and it becomes an amenity for the resident.”
Whale also ensures that funds are transferred quickly to landlords in cases involving damages or lease violations.
The company generates revenue through interest income on deposits.
“We keep 1 percent of the spread of the interest rate. We don’t charge the resident or the landlord anything. We are a registered investment adviser. There is no other RIA in the proptech space,” Petraglia said.
Petraglia positioned Whale as distinct from both insurance-backed alternatives and third-party deposit managers.
“We are not an insurance provider or a surety bond,” said Petraglia. “I want to be very clear on that. And we are not a third-party deposit solution or third-party manager. We are truly in a lane of our own.
“The space has been a little bit flooded with surety bond products, which instead of paying the deposit, charge the resident a monthly nonrefundable fee, just so they don’t have to pay the deposit. We’re on buildings with them, but I don’t consider them competition whatsoever. They only adopt about 5 to 10 percent of the building. What I don’t like about them is that if there’s damage, the resident thinks they’re paying an insurance premium and there’s no insurance behind them. So when there’s damages, those groups go after the resident to pay the damages. I think it’s predatory.”
He was also critical of third-party deposit administrators.
“There’s absolutely no innovation within that group. All they’re doing is saying, ‘Hey, listen, we know deposits are tough to deal with. Move it over to us, and we’ll do it for you.’ I equate that to basically, ‘I should clean my house, but I don’t want to, so I’m going to hire a cleaning service.’ That’s what they do. They charge the resident and or they charge the landlord for that.”
Whale said its platform is currently used across more than 500,000 multifamily units in the U.S. Its customers include institutional owners and operators such as Mill Creek, Berkshire Residential, Cardinal Group, Rudin, and Urby.
Camber Creek partner Alexandra Nicoletti said Whale aligns with the firm’s focus on reducing friction across the rental lifecycle.
“Modernizing the rental experience is a core theme Camber Creek has invested in and advanced — from how renters discover apartments, to reducing friction in tenant screening, to how rent is paid and how renter interactions are managed across the life cycle of a lease,” Nicoletti said in an email to PropTech Insider. “There are billions of dollars in value in improving these processes. But marginal improvements don’t gain buy-in. What makes Whale so compelling is the magnitude of friction it instantly removes.
“Onboarding is simple, and once in place much of the administrative burden and compliance risk around security deposits disappear. Camber Creek looks for solutions that unlock disproportionate value while demanding very little from the customer. Whale clearly stands out.”
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