Whale has closed a $4 million seed round led by Camber Creek, with participation from Stackpoint and Varro Capital—marking an important milestone for a company tackling one of the most overlooked friction points in rental housing: security deposits.

Security deposits represent tens of billions of dollars in capital that technically belong to renters, yet are typically locked away in opaque, operationally burdensome systems. For operators, managing those funds creates compliance risk and administrative overhead. For residents, it ties up cash with little transparency or benefit. Whale was built to change that dynamic entirely.

Instead of landlords holding deposits, Whale enables renters to place their security deposit into a lockable, FDIC-insured savings account in their own name. Operators receive guaranteed access to funds when needed—without ever touching the money themselves. The result is a cleaner, more compliant system that reduces operational burden for property teams while giving residents visibility, yield, and faster access to their funds at move-out.

The platform is already live across more than half a million multifamily units nationwide, with adoption from institutional owners and operators including Mill Creek, Berkshire Residential, Cardinal Group, Rudin, and Urby. That traction, combined with Whale’s regulated RIA structure, reflects a growing appetite for infrastructure-level innovation in rental housing—not just surface-level workflow tools.

As Camber Creek noted in the announcement, many attempts to “modernize” security deposits rely on insurance or surety-style products that shift risk back onto renters. Whale’s approach stands apart by removing friction altogether rather than reshuffling it.

We’re proud to have partnered with Jamie Petraglia and the Whale team from the early days to help bring this vision to market, and we’re excited to continue building alongside Camber Creek as Whale enters its next phase of growth.

You can read the full press release here, and see additional coverage in Commercial Observer for more detail on the round and Whale’s model.

Whale's Jamie Petraglia (left) and Camber Creek's Alexandra Nicoletti.