Cascading AI (YC S23)

?? Exciting News: Cascading AI Named a Gartner? Cool Vendor! ?? We're thrilled to announce that Cascading AI has been recognized as one of the Cool Vendors in Gartner's 2024 report on AI and Generative AI in Banking & Investment Services! ?? This recognition validates our innovative approach to leveraging AI technologies in the financial sector. We're proud to be among the select few companies that Gartner believes are driving transformation in this space. Want to learn how Cascading AI is revolutionizing banking and investment services with AI? Schedule time with our team in the comments below. #GartnerCoolVendor #AI #GenerativeAI #FinTech #Banking #Innovation #CascadingAI

Wow, NVIDIA featured Cascading AI (YC S23) at their Money20/20 pavilion as an AI use case in banking together with Ntropy in front of 13,000+ banking and fintech enthusiasts. Money20/20 is the largest fintech conference in the world and wow, is it a rollercoaster. Here are my top 3 learnings from this past week: 1) COLLABORATION is key: When Naré Vardanyan asked me whether I'd come to Vegas with her to show how we are using their data in our loan origination system, I didn't have to think twice: Integrating Ntropy in Casca has made our product way cooler - cash flow-based underwriting can be a game changer for small business lending. When you need to decide whether a business is doing well, tax return and accounting data is often many months old - but cash flow data is fresh. So: - (1) ? Link bank account - (2) ? Categorize transactions - (3) ? Review financials 2) Banks are adopting GENERATIVE AI faster than anyone imagined: When I pitched investors on AI-powered banking software in early 2023, the technology shift was palpable but felt so far away. People were quoting a McKinsey & Company report that said AI could unlock $1 Trillion in value for global banks, but at the same time nobody really knew how this would work quickly & securely on top of 25+ year old legacy infrastructure. Today, we realize that AI has made it possible to completely rebuild those legacy systems in a fraction of the time. - (1) ?? Rebuild banking software with AI (coding assistants) - (2) ?? Empower bankers to do their jobs faster & better with AI (banking assistants) 3) INNOVATION is about sweating the details: I don't have to tell anyone that banking is a highly regulated sector where attention to details is an absolute necessity. But what if I told you that most of the value you can unlock with AI in banking lies in the nuances of every process: To an SBA lender, automatically filling the SBA Form 1919 or 413 is way more valuable than yet another generic, horizontal customer support chat bot that regurgitates an FAQ section. This is why I'm so happy that my engineers take pride in fully understanding every process before they try to automate it: - (1) ?? Understand the process deeply by doing it ("walk a mile in your users shoes") - (2) ?? Rethink the process after you truly know why it exists I also want to say a huge thank you to the many banks, investors & partners that invited me to their wonderful events and for some standout conversations: Marc Rehberger at Customers Bank, Michael Burns & Eric Schwartz at Canapi Ventures, Feraz Shere at Financial Technology Partners / FT Partners, Tarun Gupta & Jason Felger at Jump Capital, Meghan Kober at U.S. Bank, John Onwualu at Flourish Ventures, Nik Milanovi? at This Week in Fintech, Tom Leenheer, II at Huntington National Bank, Ben Savage at Clocktower Ventures, Jeff Allen at Valley Bank, Max Liebeskind at Nyca Partners, Laura Bock at QED Investors & many more

Business Insider just named Cascading AI (YC S23) as one of the most promising fintech startups in 2024 ???? Thank you for the feature. I'm super proud of our team and our partners (banks, brokers, non-bank lenders, API providers, ...) that work incredibly hard to help small business owners get easier access to affordable funding. To quote Laura Bock from QED Investors: ?? ?When a pizzeria's oven breaks, the owner is inquiring about a loan after closing shop. While today, it might take nearly three days to hear back from a loan officer after submitting an application, financial institutions using Casca's AI platform are able to unlock 24/7, 365 support for current and potential customers.“ And Dana Eli-Lorch from Vesey Ventures: ?? ?Casca exemplifies the powerful impact AI can have on financial services, driving significant operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.“ Also shoutout to my Y Combinator batch-mate Will Lawrence from Greenlite on the feature. The banking sector desperately needs innovation... ? Every day I see small businesses who choose to forego low interest bank funding because the banks' processes just take too long.? ? I see CEOs taking out high-interest, short-term loans from online lenders because it’s easier … and I hate it.?It needs to change. ? The only way for us to fix it is to make getting affordable funding from trusted lenders easier. Bianca Chan Isaiah Williams Justin Norwood Serhii Nechyporchuk Elliott Chong Ahmad Akhrass Don Homsher Jaimin Desai Brij P. Jim Ierardi Ryan H. Lance Stukaloff Jay Shah Naré Vardanyan Ilia Zintchenko #SmallBusinessFunding #SBALending #BankingIndustry #Innovation #Fintech #YCombinator #Entrepreneurship #Startups

Being a purpose-driven and responsible organization is only possible if we lead by doing what matters. ?? This week, our new CEO Rodrigo Caserta and our Executive Committee welcome a group of underrepresented entrepreneurs from the Accenture Black Founders Development Program, Prosperity Now, and MovingWorlds organizations, for a three-hour interactive mentorship event. It was an invaluable opportunity to connect, share experiences, and tackle business challenges together. It also marked the two-year anniversary of the Avanade ‘Entrepreneur Accelerator’ initiative, dedicated to support businesses led by underrepresented communities, reinforcing our commitment on creating impact and inspiring the future business and technology leaders. #AvanadeDoWhatMatters

Cascading AI (YC S23) is excited to be attending the B2B Finance Expo in Las Vegas on September 23 - 24. We are looking forward to this event that brings together brokers, lenders, and funders from across the the commercial finance industry! If you're going to be at this event, send me a message so that we can meet up! https://lnkd.in/eNTAzQt9 cc: Isaiah Williams, Lukas Haffer, Don Homsher, Sean Murray, Steve McLaughlin, Greg Smith

?How do we make banking magical?“?I'm in Chicago this week at MoneyLIVE North America ?? my top 3 learnings today: 1. Bank-FinTech Partnership Success requires a Game Plan: Matthieu Soulé from BNP Paribas is asking the main question "What do both parties have to gain?". I agree... ? Aligned incentives are the one and only thing that decides whether a trustful, long-term partnership can flourish. ? We've seen lots of examples of failed partnerships in the BaaS space recently - fintechs trying to onboard customers as fast as possible with too little regard for bank regulation. That's misalignment. In my day to day life I try to create alignment through a shared vision "How do we want this partnership to look like in 3 years or even 5 years?" and through focusing on the people "I want my engineers to be friends with your loan officers" - the best software is built through quick iteration amongst tight, interdisciplinary teams. 2. The Intersection between physical and digital strategy - requires rethinking the role of the branch in a digital world: Sekou Kaalund from U.S. Bank, Christine Roberts from Citizens and Matthew Seagrim from Meridian Credit Union are asking "How might the role of the bank teller evolve?". ? Taking an advisory role has worked magic for the branches at some of our client banks. Ask "What would make a difference in your business?". The customer feels seen and cared for. And we've seen loan referrals from the branches reach record closing rates (above 80%) - the branch has a QR code for the online application that the customer can scan on the spot and get approved for in 5min. ? Trying to direct online customers to make an appointment in the branch to apply for a small business loan -> huge loss in conversion rates: Customers that start online want a path to continue online - get pre-qualified quickly and only if they need advice is the option to book an appointment appreciated. Even then, booking a zoom call is often preferred. We have to rethink this interaction. 3. Agile, dynamic, innovative - building the bank of tomorrow: Amy Dinkar-Patel from TD is speaking about the way to transform operations and building technology inside the bank. ? Quick iteration wins: I've seen how rapidly we were able to build best-in-class lending processes with our partners when we deploy daily. Build a prototype overnight, discuss it with the operations team in the morning, get feedback, rebuild it throughout the day, redeploy at night, ... rinse and repeat. 20 cycles later you are miles ahead of anyone else in the industry. ? The Waterfall is dead: Spending months on abstract requirement definitions before even creating the first mockups is a huge waste of time. Sure, there's a mountain of small details to worry about - but if you try to write those down on a white sheet of paper before even having a mental image of the perfect customer experience, you will never arrive there. Pic: Tom Halpin from HSBC Serhii Nechyporchuk

Ryan H. is spot on! We‘re on a mission to make SBA loan applications so easy, quick and simple that no small biz owner has to choose between ?fast funding“ and ?good interest rates“. Bankwell Cascading AI (YC S23)

Wuhuuu, we won!! ?? $50,000 to increase access to affordable funding for diverse entrepreneurs and partner with CDFIs. So proud about the impact we can make at Cascading AI (YC S23) as THE next-generation loan origination system for small biz lending in America. Huge thanks to Prosperity Now for hosting this year’s RISE challenge at their annual summit in DC. And huge thanks to my partner on stage Jocelyn W. from Next Street! We scored top 2 out of 200 applications with our pitch to bring cutting-edge technology into CDFIs and community banks. Jocelyn W. you rock!! A strong partnership in the making. And thank you to the rest of the team at Next Street and Cascading AI (YC S23): Rian Irani Michael Roth Cristina Yoder Isaiah Williams Justin Norwood Serhii Nechyporchuk Elliott Chong A special shoutout to the team at Cervin Ventures who let me use their office to crank out the slidedeck for our pitch after an impromptu meeting this past Friday until late at night (5 minutes before the deadline) ????

Love this market map by Jelena Zec from Citi Ventures! Cool to see Cascading AI (YC S23) featured alongside some fellow Y Combinator batchmates e.g., Dili (YC S23) and Greenlite (on page 1). Jelena says "GenAI is?helping streamline and democratize lending processes?via automation." I couldn't agree more. Every day I see small business owners looking for capital. Every day I see high interest rate online loans on their balance sheets. Why? Because loan origination processes at most banks take months and in their desperation many entrepreneurs fall prey to quick, but expensive online loans. AI has the potential to change this. Every day I wake up to see how many small business owners talked to our AI Loan Assistant, Sarah, last night. How many submitted a full loan application. How many got help gathering all their documents for underwriting. In the past 30 days we have an 80% completion rate of our online SBA loan application (beating all our previous metrics) - partially because of our pretty user interfaces and partially because every single loan applicant gets 24/7 assistance from our AI Loan Assistant, Sarah. I'm glad we get to make a difference in this world - while working with cool technology. Luis Valdich Robert Li Don Homsher Hunter Burrows Chandler Perog Tristan Sigerson Isaiah Williams Justin Norwood Elliott Chong Serhii Nechyporchuk Ahmad Akhrass Ryan H.

?? ???????? ???????????????? ????????! ?? We are thrilled to announce that ?????????????????? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????????? ???? ?????? ????????????????????????! ?? The team at FinTech Global selected Cascading AI (YC S23) in their annual list of ?????? ??????????'?? ???????? ???????????????????? ???? ???????????????? ?????????????????? in the financial services sector. Furthermore, Casca stands alone as ?????? ???????? ???????? ?????????????????????? ???????????? ???????????????????? ???? ?????? ????????????????????????! ?????? ???????? ???????? ???????????? ???? ?????? ?????????????????? ???????????????? ???????????????? ???? ?????????????? ?????? ?? The recognition for Casca has been pouring in - Finovate, Gartner, and now the AIFINTECH100. ?????????? ???????????? ????????-??????-?????????????????? ?????????? ?????? ???????? in terms of its vision and ability to execute on applying GenAI *responsibly* to lending use cases. ?????? ???????????? ?????? ????????? Banks, credit unions, and non-bank lenders can give their borrowers a ??????????-?????????? ???????????????? ???????????????????? while simultaneously ???????????? ?????? ???????????????????? of their small business and commercial lending operations! ?????? ???? ???????? ????????????????? ?????????? ?????? ???????? ??????????????-?????????? ?????? ?????? ?????????? ?????? to give borrowers and bankers a magical experience. Casca starts with a ???????????? ?????????????? ??????????????????????, which is coupled with the always-on guidance of Sarah. Sarah is Casca's ????-?????????????? ?????????????????? who gives every applicant the time and care that they deserve! Sarah also works on behalf of the middle and back office to ???????????????? ???????????????????? ?????????? so that your credit team can stop chasing that 2022 tax return or keying in data manually, and instead focus on making the credit risk decision! ???????????? ????????: Cascading AI is on a mission to make banking magical! ? To see the full AlFINTECH100 report, check out the link in the comments. #AIFINTECH100 #fintechglobal #banking #generativeai #genai #artificialintelligence #ai #lending #financialservices #CascadingAl #Casca