Exponent Raises $40M to Build the Financial Operating System for America's Franchise Operators

Founded and seeded by Jasper Lau's Era Funds, Exponent — the first integrated capital, expense management, and AI-powered accounting platform built for the $921 billion U.S. franchise economy— closes Series A anchored by Chailease, Taiwan's largest leasing corporation, and Andre Koo, the Chairman of Chailease, with significant participation from K8 Capital, Inauguration Capital, and NBA star Kyle Kuzma.

To learn more, visit www.exponentfi.com

NEW YORK, May 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Exponent, the financial platform built for multi-location franchise operators, today announced it has raised more than $40 million in combined equity and credit capital to expand access to modern financial infrastructure for one of the largest and most underserved segments of American small business.

The round is anchored by a $7.5 million Series A equity investment led by Chailease, the multinational asset-backed finance institution founded in 1977 and one of the largest non-bank lenders in Asia, and Andre Koo, the Chairman of Chailease, with co-lead participation from Era, the New York-based investment firm founded by Jasper Lau and backed by family enterprises across 19 countries. Inauguration Capital, the venture studio founded by Tim Hwang, is a founding investor in Exponent. Hwang also serves as co-founder and chairman of Nitra, the AI-native financial operating platform for healthcare practices that recently surpassed $1 billion in annualized processing volume.

The financing further includes more than $30 million in committed credit facilities supporting Exponent's lending products, including a previously announced $20 million revolving credit facility from Jovian Capital Management, with additional equity and debt capacity actively being added in the coming quarters.

Franchising is one of the largest engines of small business formation in the United States. Franchised establishments now generate more than $921 billion in annual output, support nearly 9 million American jobs, and operate across 845,000 locations nationwide, according to the International Franchise Association's 2026 Economic Outlook. Roughly 43,000 multi-unit operators control more than half of every franchised unit in the country — yet the operators in the five-to-fifty location range, the segment where the next generation of regional and national franchise leaders are built, remain systematically underserved by both traditional banks and the consumer-grade fintechs that have dominated the last decade of innovation.

"Franchise operators are some of the best small business operators in the country. They build durable cash flows, employ millions of Americans, and own real assets. They have been handed antiquated tools to run their businesses on," said Sohel Roopani, CEO of Exponent. "Capital providers don't provide a good experience for multi-unit operations. Technology firms focus on brands, and not enough on operators. We built Exponent because this industry deserves a financial partner that actually speaks its language — and gives it the same caliber of capital, data, and software that's being delivered to other high income, high asset sectors of the economy today."

A purpose-built financial platform for a $921 billion industry

Exponent's integrated platform combines three products engineered for the operating realities of multi-unit franchise businesses:

• Expansion and acquisition capital. Exponent's lending product funds new unit build-outs, franchise acquisitions, remodels, and bridge financing — the capital that fuels operator growth. Loans are underwritten against unit-level economics and operator track record, with turnaround measured in days rather than the months typical of traditional bank development lines.
• A corporate charge card built for franchise operators. Exponent's card delivers automatic accounting categorization and rich rewards for business spending cash back with no category restrictions, multi-entity controls designed for operators running multiple locations and legal entities, and a forthcoming suite of embedded microfinance features that extend working capital flexibility directly inside the card product.
• AI-powered accounting and bookkeeping, piloting end of summer. Most multi-unit operators today wait until the 5th to 15th of the following month to learn what their previous month actually earned. They run blind. Exponent's accounting suite, with its first pilot cohort launching at the end of summer, will deliver real-time net financial estimates in the palm of operators' hands at a cost of under $250 per location per month — compared to the $350 to $1,000 per location per month operators typically pay for outsourced bookkeeping that still produces unreliable, weeks-late data. A waitlist of more than 600 locations is already in place. The product will be staffed by U.S.-based accountants equipped with modern, AI-enabled tooling, returning onshore a category of skilled work that has been steadily moved offshore for decades because no one bothered to innovate on it.

"The accounting and bookkeeping products are going to be the most important thing we ship this year," Roopani added. "There has been almost no real innovation in franchise accounting in twenty years. The default answer in this industry has been to send the work to India or the Philippines to chase labor arbitrage, because the underlying workflow is so manual that the only lever was cost. Modern AI changes that math entirely. We can build a better product, deliver real-time financials instead of month-end-plus-fifteen-days, and do it with American accountants. That's a meaningfully better outcome for operators, for the profession, and for the country."

Investor and customer momentum

Exponent serves more than 100 multi-unit franchise operators representing over 10,000 locations across the United States, with revenue growing approximately 800% year over year since the platform launched commercially in 2025. Operator customers include the Dhanani family's HAZA Group (the largest Wendy's franchisee in the world), Capstone Restaurant Group (the second-largest Carl's Jr. and Hardee's franchisee), and the Chunara Group, TIG Corp, and Epic Group of Companies — among the most significant regional multi-unit platforms in the country.

Brands with operators or partnerships on the Exponent platform include Burger King, Dunkin', Buffalo Wild Wings, Jack in the Box, Blaze Pizza, Dave's Hot Chicken, Take 5 Oil Change, Grease Monkey, Dessange Paris, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and Golfzon — spanning QSR, casual dining, automotive services, personal care, and specialty recreation.

"The franchise operator segment is exactly the kind of market we look for at Era — large, essential, profoundly underserved by incumbents, and ready for a vertically integrated software-and-capital approach," said Jasper Lau, founder and CEO of Era. "What the Exponent team has built is not a single product. It is the financial operating system this industry has been waiting for, and the team executing it has the depth in payments, credit, and operations to actually deliver it. Era is proud to have founded and seeded Exponent and to co-lead this round as the company scales."

"Exponent is exactly the kind of company we exist to help build at Inauguration Capital: an AI-native financial platform serving a foundational American industry — the franchise operators who run the small businesses anchoring every community in the country," said Tim Hwang, founder and managing partner of Inauguration Capital "Returning skilled accounting work onshore through modern AI tooling isn't just a better product; it strengthens American competitiveness. We have deep conviction in this business model and in our team."

What's next

Exponent is actively expanding both its equity and credit capacity, with additional facility commitments in late-stage diligence. The company is hiring across engineering, credit, and accounting in its New York City headquarters, and is onboarding new franchise brands and operators on a rolling basis. The AI-powered accounting suite begins pilot with its first operator cohort at the end of summer.

About Exponent

Exponent is the financial operating system for America's franchise economy. Built specifically for multi-location franchise operators — the segment that runs more than half of the country's 845,000 franchised units — Exponent integrates expansion and acquisition lending, a corporate charge card with embedded microfinance, and an AI-powered accounting suite into a single platform. Exponent serves more than 100 multi-unit operators representing over 10,000 locations, across brands spanning QSR, casual dining, automotive services, personal care, and specialty recreation.

Exponent was founded and seeded by Era and is led by CEO Sohel Roopani, a former Visa and Stripe executive with more than a decade of experience building payments and credit infrastructure for the financial ecosystem. The company is headquartered in New York City and is backed by Era, Chailease, Inauguration Capital, Jovian Capital Management, K8 Capital, HAZA Foods, Chunara Group, NBA forward Kyle Kuzma, and other leading global investors and operators. Learn more at exponentfi.com.

About Era

Founded by Jasper Lau, Era is an investment firm anchored by some of the world's most influential family enterprises across 19 countries and 25 industries. Era builds invests in category-defining technology companies, with a portfolio that includes Anduril, Crusoe, Thinking Machines, Harmonic, EquipmentShare, Oklo, and Nitra. Learn more at erafunds.com.

About Inauguration Capital

Founded by Tim Hwang, Inauguration Capital is a venture studio at the intersection of industrial policy and private innovation, creating iconic American companies that serve the national interest. The firm's portfolio includes Nitra, the AI-native operating platform for healthcare practices, that has raised more than $200 million and processes over $1 billion in annualized transaction volume; Jericho Security, a generative AI cyber defense platform; and Vibranium Labs, building reliability infrastructure for AI-driven cloud software. Learn more at inaugurationcap.com.

About Chailease

Founded in 1977, Chailease is Taiwan's largest leasing firm and one of Asia's largest non-bank financial institutions, with more than $30 billion in assets under management and a 49-year history in asset-backed lending, equipment finance, and credit solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises across more than ten countries. Learn more at chailease.com.

SOURCE Exponent