Lama AI

Lama AI (Lama) offers a lending infrastructure platform for banks, FinTechs, and other enterprises to offer credit products including term loans, lines of credit, ABL, factoring, letters of credit, etc. Lama’s AI-powered platform enables smart applications and leverages prebuilt data integrations to onboard customers and automate underwriting. The company aims to use its underwriting data and insights as well as digital flows and streamlined processes to help its users accurately assess risk for small businesses—a group typically marginalized by lenders.

Lama offers a lending “exchange” that lets lenders refer customers to “partners” in case the customer wants a product that isn’t offered by or doesn’t match the risk appetite of the lender. In this event, the lender gets to approve more customer loans (retain the customer) without taking on loans that do not match their risk profile, while the partner automatically receives more lending opportunities.

Lama’s beta bank partners have reportedly shown a 300% average increase in the bank deal-flow acceptance rates, while the time taken to deploy loans has dropped to “days” from “months.” As of October 2022, the company reportedly had plans to expand its platform to offer several new features including portfolio analysis, automated lender appetite adjustment, and correlation to global macro changes.

Funding and financials

Lama raised USD 9 million in seed funding in October 2022 co-led by Viola Ventures and Hetz Ventures to invest in unlocking credit opportunities for SMBs.