Akshata Sharma
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A few months after Tyler and Brian Albritton moved from Brooklyn, New York to Atlanta last year, they got an email inviting them to pay their $3,400 rent through Bilt Rewards and accumulate membership points for doing so. While neither had heard of it, they saw little downside.
The couple are now saving these Bilt points for a trip-likely a Caribbean beach vacation. They can also get more points and other benefits by patronizing nearby merchants that are part of the Bilt alliance. That's one reason Tyler Albritton makes sure to visit Bilt partner SoulCycle, especially on the one day a month when one random Bilt member wins a free month's rent. "It's really nice to be rewarded for paying rent," she says.
Bilt Rewards is the brainchild of serial entrepreneur Ankur Jain, who founded it in 2019. At the time he was chairman of Rhino, a fintech startup that offers low cost insurance policies in exchange for paying a renter's security deposit. But he was looking for bigger opportunities. A friend with experience in the hospitality industry mentioned how much hotels and airlines actually make from their rewards programs.
His creation has caught on with renters, property owners and rewards partners. While he won't disclose how many people are using its app, Bilt says it has signed up property owners with a total of 4 million rentals (apartments and single family homes) in thousands of U.S. cities, plus more than a dozen airlines, several large hotel chains, gyms and restaurants. And it has turned him into a new billionaire. In January, Bilt Rewards raised $200 million from venture capital investors, who valued the company at $3.1 billion. With his 36% stake in Bilt plus other investments, the 34-year-old CEO is worth an estimated $1.2 billion.
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