Revival

Consumer Debt is a nearly $15T problem. The average American consumer spends almost their entire adult life paying off debt. This problem stems from both income and wealth inequality and has been exacerbated by the rising costs of education, housing, and the cost of living. The problem has become so dire that the average household debt is over $90,000. 

People need a way to get out of debt and get their lives back but that's become an even bigger challenge as most consumer lending products have become huge profit centers for corporations and investment banks.

Revival allows consumers to buy out their debt rather than pay it off for the price it gets sold on the aftermarket creating savings as high as 90%. We do this as an online brokerage that allows consumers to buy their debt out of the sale before it ends up being sold off to a hedge fund or a debt collector for a fraction of the price. 

To illustrate how cheap debt could be bought out, we started off by giving away more than $2M worth of debt relief to low-income consumers struggling to pay off payday loans. Following that, we launched a pilot where consumers were able to eliminate more than $60K.

Revival improves the lives of low-income populations by giving them a chance to get out of debt below the base price and without the predatory interest rates that keep people in debt forever. The average net impact of our pilot as cited in our Impact Assessment with the Robin Hood Foundation was a net worth increase of more than $1,500, a credit score increase of 5-25 points, and this was all created in one transaction for each consumer.

Wealth and income inequality are the root problems of the growing amount of debt both in the United States and abroad. These are notoriously difficult spaces to make tangible progress in but it's also important to understand that wealth inequality continues to make things worse. The financial system works differently for those with access to capital. This is how investment banks and hedge funds are able to buy the debt at discounted rates. This system allows those with capital to grow wealth faster while charging additional interest to those without.

Revival helps people build wealth faster by reducing their liabilities and pooling their capital together so they can buy at the same prices that are offered to major institutions. The fact that the poorer someone is, the more their debt is discounted only supercharges the impact of our work.

I left grad school with nearly $100,000 in student loans despite attending a small public school with scholarships and assistantships. That level of debt was debilitating and led me to a place where I considered moving out of the country or even faking my death so I didn’t have to live the rest of my life trying to repay my loans. 

That initial frustration pushed me to get active in the fight against student debt. I went on to design the websites for two of the leading organizations in the fight against student debt; Student Debt Crisis, who most know from their work with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Chuck Schumer in their plan to cancel $50K, and the Debt Collective who most people know from their work with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

After also serving as a US Senate panelist on the topic and being featured in publications like US News, Money.com, NY1 and more, I decided to take my learnings on how debt was flowing through the system to find a way to disrupt it with my partner Henry who has been a debt broker for more than 20 years and collected over $150M over the course of his career.

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The biggest challenges that we need help solving are legal and regulatory issues. Right now we are solely focused on states with little to no licensing requirements for purchasing debt but as we scale, having the assistance of MIT Solve would be helpful in getting through those barriers.

Revival is innovative because it improves people's lives by giving them a chance to get out of debt below the base price and without the predatory interest rates that keep people in debt forever. 

Wealth and income inequality are the root problems of the growing amount of debt both in the United States and abroad. These are notoriously difficult spaces to make tangible progress in but it's also important to understand that wealth inequality continues to make things worse. The financial system works differently for those with access to capital. This is how investment banks and hedge funds are able to buy the debt at discounted rates. This system allows those with capital to grow wealth faster while charging additional interest to those without.

Revival helps people build wealth faster by reducing their liabilities and pooling their capital together so they can buy at the same prices that are offered to major institutions. The fact that the poorer someone is, the more their debt is discounted only supercharges the impact of our work.

Our impact goal for the next year is to get over $5M in debt eliminated. Within the next 5 years, we hope to reach over $1B in debt eliminated and continue or work to help people escape loans with predatory interest rates through connections with our community partners to create an expected savings of over $100M.

We measure progress in two main ways; how much debt have we helped people eliminate and how much have we helped improve people's credit scores. The average net impact of our pilot as cited in our Impact Assessment with the Robin Hood Foundation was a net worth increase of more than $1,500, a credit score increase of 5-25 points, and this was all created in one transaction for each consumer.

Remember how in 2008, our economy crashed because of all the investment banks buying and selling our mortgages for pennies on the dollar? Now that Revival exists, people can replicate that process for themselves. They’re now able to buy out their mortgage for a fraction of the cost, freeing themselves of a lifetime of work fighting to pay off debt that they wish they never had to take out in the first place.

At Revival, we're tired of surface-level solutions to the problem of being in debt. Teaching consumers, and shaving pennies from all your transactions and funneling it to debt can only have a marginal impact. We know because everyone on our team has put in the time learning, and gone through the experience of being charged more in services fees for platforms that were supposed to help us.

We go after the source of the problem. Ownership of debt as an investment. In disrupting the ownership stronghold, we put money back in the hands of borrowers who truly didn't have it to begin with, and give them an actual chance at prosperity.

Revival allows consumers to buy out their debt rather than pay it off for the price it gets sold on the aftermarket creating savings as high as 90%. We do this as an online brokerage that allows consumers to buy their debt out of the sale before it ends up being sold off to a hedge fund or a debt collector for a fraction of the price. 

To illustrate how cheap debt could be bought out, we started off by giving away more than $2M worth of debt relief to low-income consumers struggling to pay off payday loans. Following that, we launched a pilot where consumers were able to eliminate more than $60K.

We strive on leadership from people of all backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations. The problem we aim to solve impacts marginalized communities the most so we privilege their lived experiences in the products we ship and compensate them equitably for the value that they bring to our company.

We hope to build a platform that helps all people access their debt at discounted rates but we're starting with low-income consumers who need our service the most. Our users struggle to keep up with their minimum credit card balances and typically use a range of different installment loan products which can range from Buy Now Pay Later solutions to Payday Loans.

The lenders behind these products don't like to keep their debt on the books. They are eager to sell them off so they can continue to create more loans. On our platform, once a consumer's debt goes up for sale, they get an email notification where they can access their debt at the aftermarket price and save as much as 90 percent on what they originally owed.

We plan to leverage impact-focused capital and equity investments to bring more debt onto our platform which gives more consumers the ability to eliminate it while charging a brokerage fee to lenders for creating liquidity. After we reach critical mass, we can partner with a larger brokerage firm to decrease our upfront risk and open new partnerships with lenders which will more than 100x the amount of debt available on our platform.

Revival has received over $300K in funding including backing from best-in-class investors like a16z but also including top tier foundations like the Tides Foundations and Robin Hood Foundation.