Erebor Bank launches $20 million nationwide opportunity initiative, taps Marcia Fudge as chair

Columbus-headquartered Erebor Bank is committing $20 million to hometown financial institutions as the starting point for a nationwide effort to finance commercial opportunities in underserved communities.

The bank announced its Opportunity Initiative on Oct. 15, naming Adelphi Bank, Ohio’s first Black-owned bank, as its inaugural partner. Former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge will chair the effort.

The big picture

Erebor, co-founded by Anduril's Palmer Luckey, is looking to connect its technology and industrial banking business with investment in the communities where its customers operate.

• The customers: Erebor said its clients operate across manufacturing, aerospace, defense, robotics, artificial intelligence and energy.
• The model: Partner with community-based financial institutions in those same communities to help finance local commercial ventures.
• The priorities: Housing, employment training and healthcare—areas the bank identified as critical to broad-based economic growth.

“Today, there are incredible commercial opportunities in urban and rural communities throughout America that continue to go underfunded,” Fudge said in the announcement. “This initiative’s partnership with community-based financial institutions represents the innovative approach that America needs.”

Why it matters for Ohio

Columbus will serve as the initial model for a program Erebor intends to expand across Ohio and nationwide. Fudge, an Ohio native and former Cleveland-area congresswoman, will lead that development and expansion.

The effort ties Erebor’s focus on technology and industrial companies to a broader challenge: financing the housing, workforce training and services needed in the places where those businesses operate. Its partnership strategy puts community lenders—and their knowledge of local borrowers and commercial opportunities—at the center of that work.

Adelphi, founded in 2023 and headquartered in Columbus’s King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood, focuses on reducing the wealth gap through homeownership opportunities, entrepreneurial resources and banking services for historically underserved Central Ohio communities.

“Partnerships like this one are exactly how you move capital into neighborhoods that have been left out for generations,” said Kevin L. Boyce, Adelphi’s founder. “When institutions with different strengths come together around a shared purpose, that’s how we start to close the wealth gap in a real, measurable way.”

By the numbers

• $20 million: Erebor’s initial commitment to financial institutions in Columbus. The announcement did not specify how much Adelphi would receive.
• More than $8 billion: Assets reported by Erebor, which said it opened in early 2026.
• First year: The initiative’s launch falls within Erebor’s first year of operations.
• 2023: The year Adelphi was founded, adding a community banking partner with an established Central Ohio focus.

What they’re saying

"Across the country, in urban and rural areas, there are financial institutions keenly aware of essential and viable commercial opportunities," said Owen Rapaport, Co-Founder and CEO of Erebor. "Until today, they didn't have a national partner to empower them."

Adelphi Chairman and CEO Jordan Miller said the partnership would build on the bank’s existing community relationships.

“We’ve spent years building relationships and trust in these communities,” Miller said. “This partnership gives us the ability to deploy more capital, faster, into the small businesses, homeowners, and commercial corridors that need it most.”