While multifamily unit development outpaces single-family homeownership in Los Angeles, one fintech platform aims to open the market to the next generation by scaling mortgage down payment financing programs for private companies.

ORO Impact publicly debuted last month with a business-to-business software platform that aims to facilitate down-payment loans from companies to their employees. The platform is rolling out beta testing with its first batch of clients this year.

George Clayton Fatheree III founded ORO Impact in June of last year after leaving his post as partner at the prominent law firm Sidley Austin. Fatheree was on the legal team representing the Bruce family in the lawsuit that returned ownership of a Manhattan Beach property the family had owned more than 100 years ago before the city used eminent domain to seize the land.

The case became a lightning rod for debate on the role of property equity in wealth accumulation and how such financial systems have been historically stratified from marginalized communities. Fatheree began investigating potential solutions to break down modern hurdles to home ownership and saw the upfront cost in mortgages as a potential target.

“One of the first barriers you come across is down-payment affordability,” Fatheree said. “We’ve got millions of Americans who are paying rent and their monthly cost is enough for them to make a mortgage payment.”

ORO hopes the private sector offering down-payment financing as a benefit will, in part, address the growing wealth gap as Census Bureau data shows the number of Americans renting their homes continues to climb.

Inspired by his own experience when he and his wife moved to Los Angeles and his company covered an initial down payment, ORO provides an online infrastructure for companies to distribute down payment loans and for employees to access these funds and pay off interest at scale.

Companies will buy into the platform’s capabilities, and ORO will charge an origination fee for the loan to employees’ escrow transactions. According to Fatheree, the fintech platform itself isn’t partnering with an outside financial institution for deposit housing or transaction facilitation. However, companies could have the option to partner with banks in sharing the mortgage loan share.

ORO’s platform debuts at a time when the single-family housing market is particularly fraught, with low supply, as mortgage rates reached 16-year highs and owners hesitate to relinquish purchases made when rates hovered in the 3% margin a few years ago.

However, Fatheree believes the product he is building remains relatively immune to the housing market’s cycles as long as home ownership remains the key to building a household’s net worth.

“As high as mortgage rates are right now, you still have people that are paying a high level of their annual income for rent,” Fatheree said. “That’s money they don’t get a return on.”

ORO plans on testing the product with a dozen companies this year and is already in conversations with several potential clients. While the capabilities and budget of each company will be different, Fatheree emphasized clients will likely set limited budgets for the program and could distribute loans based on employee seniority or through a company lottery system. Either way, ORO is positioning itself as a benefits program that could attract and retain talent.

“Employer-sponsored down-payment assistance is a very, very high-impact recruiting and retention tool for employers,” Fatheree said.

ORO Impact currently has $600,000 in funding through Fatheree’s own pocketbook and funding from friends and family.