Eisen raises $18.5 million to help Americans recover $70 billion of forgotten assets held by state governments

(SeaPRwire) –   Shortly after joining a Zoom call with Eisen, the startup’s co-founder and CEO Alan Osgood had a surprise: The state of New York was holding money that belonged to him. By searching his name in a publicly available database, Osgood discovered he had failed to claim funds paid out by his college, likely as part of a class action lawsuit, and that those funds had been turned over to the state through a process known as escheatment. He now had to complete forms to reclaim his money. This experience is exactly why Osgood founded Eisen—to prevent more people from inadvertently leaving their assets in unclaimed accounts held by U.S. states.

Eisen provides a service to financial services platforms that manages escheatments while also working to identify affected customers and avoid escheatment altogether. Osgood, previously a product manager at Coinbase, has focused especially on cryptocurrency, an asset increasingly treated as escheatable property by many states. Although individual amounts may be small, the total value of unclaimed funds is substantial: States collectively hold approximately $70 billion collected via escheatment, which occurs when funds remain inactive for a specified period before being transferred to the state.

On Tuesday, Eisen announced it had secured a $10 million Series A funding round led by MissionOG, bringing the company’s total funding to $18.5 million. Previously unreported, Eisen raised an $8.5 million seed round led by Index Ventures. Additional investors include First Round Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Homebrew, and Restive Ventures.

“Across crypto, brokerage, fintech—all these places where people hold money—companies are essentially being extorted by the states… and then the states almost never return funds to individuals,” Osgood told us in an interview. “What Eisen does is operate at the financial institution level to ingest millions of accounts from our clients, apply the complex state-by-state rules… and hopefully reunite users with their funds before they’re lost to the states.”

Escheatment can occur when funds go unclaimed following someone’s death, but it can also happen simply because a person forgets to check their account on a financial platform. Funds typically become dormant for 3–5 years before being subject to escheatment. States generally sell off liquid assets like stocks and cryptocurrencies; if unclaimed, these funds remain indefinitely on the state’s balance sheet.

Osgood says Eisen’s service is gaining popularity within the crypto industry, particularly following the 2021 bull run that brought in numerous new users—a trend that could trigger a wave of escheatments. He notes that crypto compliance teams are “wildly underprepared” for such a scenario.

When customer funds are sent to escheatment, firms risk alienating users and losing them entirely to competitors, Osgood explained. The founder added that Eisen is tracking roughly $700 million in crypto assets that could be escheated in 2026.

Several states, including New York and California, classify cryptocurrency as escheatable property. A surge in escheatments could represent a growing pain point in the maturation of the crypto industry, according to Osgood.

“Crypto whales will be liquidated through no action of their own,” Osgood warned. “It’s about to hit crypto hard.”