Kaaj, an agentic AI credit intelligence platform designed to simplify small business lending, raised $3.8 million in seed funding led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from Better Tomorrow Ventures and others.
The capital will accelerate product development and expand Kaaj’s reach across the $1.7 trillion U.S. small-business lending market and the $1.3 trillion equipment finance market.
Kaaj’s platform deploys AI agents that work together to automate the entire credit analysis process, from business verification and cash flow analysis to asset valuation, financial analysis and risk assessment.
“Lenders face a fundamental profitability problem: it takes the same amount of time and resources to underwrite a $100,000 loan as it does a $5 million loan,” Shivi Sharma, president and co-founder of Kaaj, said. “This forces lenders to prioritize larger loans, leaving millions of small businesses without access to the capital they need to operate and grow. Kaaj’s platform doesn’t just speed things up. It fundamentally changes the economics of small business lending, making smaller loans profitable for lenders while improving the borrower experience.”
The platform has already processed over $5 billion in loan applications and has a growing customer base of lenders and brokers with companies like Amur Equipment Finance, Quality Equipment Finance, and Fundr.
“Time kills deals in small business lending,” Utsav Shah, co-founder and CEO of Kaaj, said. “When multiple lenders compete for the same quality borrowers, speed determines winners. Faster, more consistent decisions with clear data help brokers reduce administration time and focus on delivering bespoke advice and guidance for small businesses. For lenders, Kaaj speeds up the response time to minutes instead of days, demonstrably improving their approval-to-funding ratios so they don’t lose quality deals to competitors.”
