About Us | Unison

Why Unison

For homeowners,

You shouldn’t have to sell your home and relocate to convert that wealth into money you can actually spend. With Unison, you can make your home equity work for you.

It's a chance to access the equity you already own. The home is where families grow, where memories are made, and for most Americans, where the majority of wealth is stored.

For investors,

It’s an opportunity to access exposure to a significant, yet elusive asset. Real estate is an anchor to the economy and truly essential to everyday life, yet efficient access to the equity in owner-occupied real estate has not been available at scale – until now.

With Unison, institutional investors can curate a geographically-diverse portfolio that leverages the largest asset class in the United States, valued at $32 trillion, while remaining stable through down markets as homeowners stay put in times of uncertainty.

For society,

It’s a means of helping all of us thrive, through good times and bad. A society in which housing is financially inaccessible to so many is a society that’s unsustainable – one that grows less healthy, less secure, and less productive with every passing year.

By creating an equity option, we aim to reduce general risk, create more diverse choices, and lower consumer debt. The result? A landscape in which individuals, families, and retirees can ensure their quality of life and fund their futures, without taking on overwhelming, unwieldy debt.

Our mission

Optimize home ownership

In 2006, Thomas Sponholtz was watching two sources of frustration unfold

With the lack of an equity option for homeowners, individuals were struggling to advantageously access their equity without selling their homes, while investors couldn’t buy into residential real estate at any meaningful scale.

Enter Unison: the first ever home equity sharing option. With over 20 years of connecting homeowners and investors, Unison is adapting to market trends and homeowner needs to offer multiple solutions as we continue our mission to democratize the residential market, empower individuals to access the cash they need, and optimize homeownership on a societal scale.

$8.8 Billion

Total value of homes invested in across the country

17,000+

Unison Homeowners

142

Remodeling projects

$163M

Consumer debt paid off

$27M

Mortgage debt paid off

The people behind the scenes

Once you've received your co-investment from Unison, the Home Partnership Team will support you throughout your time with Unison. Whether you need to refinance, sell your home, or remodel your property, we'll be a resource for you along the way.

Robert Carbone
Home Partnership Team Member

Leadership

Leading the way to optimize homeownership.

Meet our leaders

Unison Leadership

Thomas Sponholtz

Founder & CEO

Thomas founded Unison and leads the company’s overall strategic direction. He has more than twenty years of experience building large-scale consumer finance and investment management businesses at companies such as Barclay’s Global Investors, where he managed the $28 billion residential mortgage portfolio, built the first Fixed Income ETF (iShares) and developed Barclay’s Global Multi-Strategy and Credit Long/Short fund.

Thomas holds an Academy Economist degree from Niels Brock’s Academy of International Business in Copenhagen, Denmark. Thomas has been on the Board of Outward Bound, he is an avid sailboat racer and kite surfer, and he launched the world’s first junior kite board race team.

Scott Case

Chief Financial Officer

As Chief Financial Officer, Scott leads Unison’s finance and fundraising efforts. He joins the company from Silicon Valley Bank - where he started and ran their Private Bank, Global Fund Banking and Leverage Finance businesses, leading to a great appreciation of the FinTech space. Before banking, he had broad experience in the technology industry where he was CFO at both Actiance and Go Networks and President at Silicon Motion.

Scott moved to San Francisco to lead GE Equity’s West Coast venture business from New York where he worked at JP Morgan and McKinsey & Co.

Matthew O'Hara

Chief Investment Officer

Matt is Unison's Chief Investment Officer responsible for all investments at Unison Investment Management and its associated research. Matt’s most recent previous engagement was to run the LifePath series of funds at BlackRock. LifePath is a multi-asset (target date) series of funds with global reach and over $300B in assets. The funds were gold-rated by MorningStar and carried such ratings ranging from 3 to 5 (the highest rating). In addition, they were buy-rated by all major consultants. In addition, Matt also spoke frequently on the subjects of retirement savings and retirement spending.

He worked at BGI/BLK from 2003-when he graduated as valedictorian from the Masters in Financial Engineering program at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business-to February, 2021. Besides running the LifePath series of funds, Matt developed the CoRI retirement indexes and their associated analytics and interface, known as iRetire. Previous to his work in multi-asset portfolio management and retirement innovation, Matt worked in the quantitative fixed income group at BGI. His work included researching, assisting in the launch, and running, of BGI’s flagship quantitative credit long/short fund. He has also researched and launched funds in the government bond and securitized credit spaces. He has also consulted in the single family residential FinTech space over the years.

Matt has also served on the board of the CFA Society of San Francisco, including as president.

Ryan Downs

President

As Unison’s President, Ryan oversees the company’s operational strategy and is responsible for managing the day-to-day business. He leads all of Unison’s consumer and production functions, which include: Business Development, Data Science & Engineering, Production & Investment Operations, Product, and Marketing.

Ryan joins Unison after a decade as President and CEO of Proxibid, a leading online platform for buying and selling highly valued assets, including real estate. Proxibid experienced tremendous growth under Ryan’s leadership, reaching $6B in annual transaction volume and resulting in an acquisition by a private equity group in 2020. Prior to Proxibid, Ryan was a top executive at Paypal (later acquired by eBay). As SVP of Worldwide Operations, he was responsible for approximately 5700 FTEs engaged in numerous functions, including Consumer Service, Merchant Service, Sales, Compliance, and Risk Operations. In addition to his PayPal responsibilities, Ryan also managed eBay Global Customer Support, which included an additional 6000 FTEs, from 2007 to 2008.

Prior to his work at Paypal and eBay, Ryan served as CEO at Omaha-based web development and IT consulting form, eTopia Technologies. Before that, he was a partner at the law firm Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott in Denver, Colorado, where he specialized in complex commercial litigation.

Ryan currently serves on the Board of Directors for Assurity Life Insurance Company in Lincoln, Nebraska. He also serves on several nonprofit boards, including Bellevue University, NorthStar, and the Corporate Advisory Board for the Raikes School of Computer Science and Management at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Ryan earned a B.S. in Agricultural Sciences in 1991 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1994. He was born and raised on his family’s farm outside Hershey, Nebraska, and currently resides in Springfield, Nebraska with his wife, Valerie, and their three children, Emily, Lauren, and Carson.