Why We Invested in Kaaj
Excited to Announce Our Investment in Kaaj!
We are thrilled to share our investment in Kaaj! We led their pre-seed round and invested in their $3.8M seed round led by our friends at Kindred Ventures.
Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, creating jobs and driving growth in every community. Yet access to credit remains broken for 33 million small businesses across the country. It's a well-documented problem that has persisted for decades.
Nearly 50% of these businesses report unmet financing needs. The problem lies in an outdated, manual, and slow lending system. Today, it takes the same amount of time to underwrite a $50,000 loan as a $5 million loan. Lenders cannot serve small businesses profitably and are leaving significant revenue on the table.
But the opportunity to fix this has never been greater. More small businesses are being formed than ever before. New AI tools make it possible to analyze unstructured financial data at scale. Regulators are pushing for more transparent and accessible lending. All the pieces are in place for transformation.
That is why Kaaj is building the credit intelligence platform for lenders and brokers that brings small business lending into the modern age. Their platform uses AI to gather and analyze data, and generate a complete financial profile and credit memo in minutes. What once took weeks can now be done in a fraction of the time, helping lenders serve more businesses while reducing costs.
The results speak for themselves. Kaaj's customers see an 80% reduction in credit assessment time on deals processed through the platform. They start generating more revenue by closing more loans within a month of launching with Kaaj. The platform has already processed over $5 billion in loan applications and has a growing customer base of lenders and brokers, with industry-leading companies like Amur Equipment Finance, Quality Equipment Finance, and Fundr.
It's a very strong founding team that combines deep AI expertise and risk experience. Utsav was an early Data Scientist at Uber, and then worked on self-driving cars and advanced AI systems at Cruise. Shivi has spent a decade building credit risk and fraud risk data products in financial services. They deeply understand both the technology and the problem they're solving.
Kaaj's vision is to build the largest small business lending network, unlocking affordable capital for millions of entrepreneurs and strengthening the financial backbone of the U.S. economy.
If you're a lender or broker looking to modernize your small business lending operations, get in touch!
We are proud to back Utsav, Shivi, and the Kaaj team as they reshape how credit flows to Main Street. Great to support Kaaj alongside Kanyi at Kindred!
