Credit intelligence platform startup Kaaj Technologies Inc. revealed today that it has raised $3.8 million in funding to accelerate product development and expand its agentic artificial intelligence-powered platform across the U.S. small-business and equipment-finance lending markets.

Founded in 2024, Kaaj is on a mission to expand access to affordable capital for all small businesses through the use of agentic AI workflows that help lenders analyze end-to-end loan packages and create decision-ready analysis for small business lending. The result is aimed at reducing lender costs and accelerating decision-making.

Kaaj’s founding team brings a mix of deep AI expertise and risk experience. Co-founder and Chief Executive Utsav Shah spent a decade at Uber Technologies Inc. and Cruise LLC, where he built AI-powered decision-making systems at large scale. Co-founder and President Shivi Sharma formerly worked at American Express Co., Uber and Varo Bank N.A., where she specialized in credit and fraud risk.

The company’s platform aims to address the issue that small businesses in the U.S. struggle to gain access to capital. According to the Federal Reserve 2024 Small Business Credit Survey, some 50% of small business loan applicants fail to receive the full amount of capital they need, leaving businesses undercapitalized at crucial growth stages.

The reason why small businesses struggle to raise capital, according to Kaaj, is that loans under $1 million are not profitable using current manual, time-intensive underwriting approaches. Kaaj believes it can change the paradigm with the use of 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.

Using Kaaj, what traditionally takes underwriters days of manual work across thousands of documents can be completed in under three minutes. The decision-ready analysis integrates directly into existing loan origination systems.

“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,” explains Sharma. “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,” added Sharma. “It fundamentally changes the economics of small business lending, making smaller loans profitable for lenders while improving the borrower experience.”

Though still relatively young, Kaaj has already processed more than $5 billion in loan applications and has a growing customer base of lenders and brokers. Notable customers include Amur Equipment Finance Inc., Quality Equipment Finance Inc. and Fundr Inc.

The seed round was led by Kindred Ventures, with Better Tomorrow Ventures also participating.

Photo: Kaaj