In a significant stride towards transforming the financial landscape, AbleCredit, an AI-driven credit underwriting startup, has secured $1.25 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by Merak Ventures, with participation from Venture Catalysts and Helios Holdings (Suraj Nalin). This investment marks Merak Ventures’ fourth significant commitment this year, underscoring their confidence in AbleCredit’s innovative approach to credit assessment.
India faces a substantial credit gap, particularly in the MSME sector, estimated at INR 25 trillion. This gap is primarily due to a shortage of qualified underwriters and high underwriting costs. AbleCredit aims to bridge this gap by leveraging advanced AI technology to streamline the credit underwriting process.
Founded in 2023 by Utkarsh Apoorva, Harshad Saykhedkar, Ashwini Prabhu, and Anubhab Bandyopadhyay, AbleCredit is developing generative AI models with voice, vision, and language capabilities. These models function as AI assistants to credit teams, generating comprehensive credit reports on a case-by-case basis while adhering to credit policies and guidelines. The unique voice and vision capabilities enable the model to be used even in the informal sector, which forms a bulk of new-to-credit customers and is extremely data-scarce.
AbleCredit’s AI-driven approach has effectively increased underwriting speed by over 20 times and decreased underwriting costs by enhancing the throughput of credit processes by 12 times. The startup aims to process one million loan applications over the next 12 months, providing small businesses with loans in under a minute.
With the fresh infusion of capital, AbleCredit is poised to scale its AI operations and expand its business, bringing efficient and inclusive credit solutions to underserved sectors. The company’s innovative use of AI in credit underwriting is setting new standards in the fintech industry, promising a future where credit is accessible to all
