Kaaj, an agentic AI credit intelligence platform that simplifies small business lending, has raised $3.8 million in a seed funding round led by Kindred Ventures.
The round also saw participation from Better Tomorrow Ventures, Karman Ventures, Pythia Ventures, Coughdrop Capital, and notable angels including Soups Ranjan (CEO, Sardine AI), Rahul Ramesh (CCO, Brex), Remy Carole (COO, TreasuryPrime), Sip Jiyane (CAO, Affirm), Steven Ma (CEO, Pony Money), Adam Jackson (CEO, Braintrust Network), Aadik Shekhar and many more.
The funds raised will be used to expand its reach across the US small-business lending and finance market.
Founded in 2024 by Utsav Shah and Shivi Sharma, Kaaj is an agentic AI credit intelligence platform that automates small business loan underwriting from application to decision-ready analysis. The San Francisco-based company integrates seamlessly with existing loan origination systems, enabling lenders and brokers to scale efficiently while maintaining consistency and transparency.
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.
Kaaj serves both lenders and brokers, who together represent the vast majority of small business financing activity. For lenders, the platform enables profitable scaling without proportional headcount growth, allowing a team processing 500 applications monthly to handle 2,000 applications with the same staff. For brokers, Kaaj adds intelligent lender matching capabilities, routing deals to the most appropriate financing sources.
By integrating with popular CRM systems like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, HubSpot, Zoho, and more, Kaaj goes live in as little as three weeks.
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.
Utsav Shah, CEO and co-founder, Kaaj, said, “Time kills deals in small business lending. 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.”
Shivi Sharma, President and co-founder of Kaaj, said, “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. 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.”
Kanyi Maqubela, Managing Partner, Kindred Ventures, said, “Small business lending has long struggled with a fundamental economics problem, the cost to underwrite smaller loans hasn’t matched the returns, leaving millions of businesses underserved. Kaaj is solving this by fundamentally changing the unit economics of SMB lending through intelligent automation. The platform doesn’t just incrementally improve efficiency; it unlocks an entirely new category of profitable lending that was previously inaccessible.”
Jake Gibson, Founding Partner, Better Tomorrow Ventures, said, “We’re backing a team with the rare combination of deep AI expertise and domain knowledge in credit risk to build the infrastructure that will power the next generation of small business finance.”
Sheel Mohnot, Co-Founder & General Partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures, said, “What impressed us most was Kaaj’s approach to building transparent, audit-ready AI that enhances rather than replaces human judgment. In an industry where consistency and compliance are paramount, this is exactly the kind of infrastructure innovation that expands access to financial services for underserved communities.”
