FinovateSpring 2024 / Cascading AI
Presenter Profile:
How they describe themselves: Casca is the world’s first AI-powered loan origination system to reduce 90% of manual effort in small business and commercial lending.
The system is live with an FDIC-insured bank: “We’ve just seen tremendous success with Casca, even in the first months. Casca helps bring leads that are five or six times the quality of what was coming in through organic marketing.”
– Ryan Hildebrandt (EVP & Chief Innovation Officer, Bankwell Bank) [American Banker].
How they describe their product/innovation: Cascading AI invented and built the world’s first AI Loan Assistant, called Sarah. Sarah is already capable of doing the work of a 30-person lending team, guiding hundreds of small business owners through loan application processes, collecting and analyzing financial documents and even preparing credit memos.
Game-Changer Alert: Sarah increases banker productivity by 10x and applicant conversion rates by 3x. Put the two together and we are talking about a 30X step-change for the industry…and we are just getting started!
Product distribution strategy: Through financial institutions
Credit Union/Community Bank Fit: Credit Unions, Community Banks
Contacts:
Bus. Dev. & Press: Lukas Haffer (CEO & Co-Founder), lukas@cascading.ai, 650-788-6045
Website: cascading.ai
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/cascading-a
HQ: San Francisco, CA, USA
Founded: June 2023
Product Demoed: Casca – The World’s First AI-native Loan Origination System.
Metrics: 6 people, all-Stanford founding team | Joined by former nCino Head of AI & Data, Justin Norwood | Backed with $4M+ in funding by top VCs (including Y Combinator)
- Casca’s first customer, Bankwell Bank, decided to invest in the company after successfully processing hundreds of small business loan applications ($10,000 to $5M) on the AI-powered LOS:
- 67% conversion rate from lead to full application (more than 3x increase)
- 90% reduction in manual effort during loan origination
- 50% reactivation of churned applicants (increased pipeline by $12M+)
Presenters: Lukas Haffer – CEO & Co-Founder, Cascading AI | Isaiah Williams – CTO & Co-Founder, Cascading AI
- Key Executives
Lukas Haffer (CEO), Isaiah Williams (CTO), Justin Norwood (CMO)
Key Stats
- Key Board Members
Lukas Haffer (CEO, Cascading AI), Isaiah Williams (CTO, Cascading AI), Ilana Stern (Investor, Peterson Ventures)
- Key Investors
Nik Milanović (The Fintech Fund / This Week in Fintech), Simon Taylor (Fintech Brainfood & Scout at a16z), Ben Savage (Clocktower Ventures), Ryan Hildebrandt (CIO, Bankwell Bank), Ilana Stern (Peterson Ventures), Nick Elledge (Founder, DataFleet), Y Combinator, Sarah Smith (GP, Sarah Smith Fund), Damien Weiss (Wilson Sonsini), Sigalit Perelson (MLFoundry / Scout at Sequoia Captial)
- Key Customers
Bankwell Bank