Clerkie accelerates its mission to democratize financial wellness for everyday Americans through automation
SAN FRANCISCO, April 18, 2023 — Clerkie, the leading AI-powered financial automation platform, today announced its $33M Series A round led by Left Lane Capital with participation from other notable investors including Wellington Management Company, Flourish Ventures, Citi Ventures, CMFG Ventures and Vestigo Ventures. Fintech visionaries David Velez, founder of Nubank, and Tom Proulx, founder of Intuit, also participated in the round. The company previously raised a $6M seed round during the pandemic and has now raised $41M to date. This time around, their impressive financial performance coupled with product differentiation led to an expedited and oversubscribed Series A financing. The funds will be used to grow the engineering team and rapidly scale the company’s debt workout solutions to support more partners and help more borrowers.
“The consumer debt market is fundamentally broken for consumers and the creditors that serve them, as evidenced by the predatory collections practices and the crushing amount of debt burdening American families” said Guy Assad, CEO and co-founder of Clerkie. “Today, tens of millions of Americans are struggling with their debts and are falling into delinquency. It’s a lose-lose situation for the borrowers and for the banks who are racking up billions in losses. Our goal is to support struggling American families by giving them better tools to responsibly fulfill their debt obligations and ease their debt burden.”
“We could not be more excited to partner with Clerkie. As consumer debt delinquency rises, we believe technology that makes the lending system more efficient and effective for all parties will be critical. The Clerkie team’s deep subject matter expertise and commitment to making this process as constructive and beneficial as possible to the consumer stood out. We believe in that mission and look forward to being part of the journey,” said Dan Ahrens, Managing Partner at Left Lane Capital.
The problem the company is solving is one that is deeply personal for Mr. Assad. Sourcing from his personal experiences as a person of color, Guy has seen firsthand, both in his family and in his community, the severe anxiety and financial hardship that can result from untenable debt burdens. After his own father was diagnosed and ultimately lost his battle with cancer, the medical bills and the credit card debts racked up. “It was just a lot. On one hand you’re dealing with this unthinkable grief and on the other hand you’re trying to manage this crippling financial stress. But, you just have to keep it moving and forge ahead because a lot of people are relying on you”, recounts Guy. It took him several months to haggle with the collections companies and the medical companies to find suitable repayment plans that would allow them to repay back these bills responsibly. “That was an incredibly painful process; and I was blessed enough to be one of the lucky few that understood how the system works”
For context, Guy went straight to McKinsey out of Stanford Business School to work with large banks on advising their digital transformation efforts. Over the course of many engagements, Guy and his co-founders, Sebastian Wigstrom and Gray Hoffman, saw an opportunity to modernize legacy banking systems and processes with modern digital solutions that can automate and address a significant problem for financial institutions: delinquencies. “These systems are incredibly arcane and rigid; we quickly saw an opportunity to help millions of at-risk borrowers pay back their debts responsibly and avoid delinquency if we could just modernize this infrastructure” said Sebastian, CTO and co-founder at Clerkie. From a borrower perspective, they learned that financial wellness was not all about money but more about access – access to simple financial solutions and sound financial guidance. “More specifically, borrowers needed guidance tailored to their specific financial needs and that guidance has to be easily executable and automated”, said Guy. Clerkie’s debt automation software seeks to deliver against that vision.
Today, Clerkie’s proprietary platform has become the go-to tool for creditors looking to manage their loan losses while simultaneously helping millions of borrowers get out of debt and improve their credit. The platform uses a number of data points to identify and help potentially delinquent borrowers avoid default. From there, the system proactively surfaces viable workout options for a given borrower, thereby helping them avoid the predatory collections process and ultimately helping them ease their debt burden and improve their financial health.
“We are honored to have partnered with Clerkie from the very beginning of their journey,” said Emmalyn Shaw, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures, who understood the company’s vision very early on and co-led its Seed round. “With interest rates going up to a level not seen in approximately 20 years, significantly more Americans are at risk and the level of delinquent consumer debt is likely to exceed $130B. Clerkie’s debt automation platform is needed more now than ever and enables a true win-win outcome for lenders and borrowers alike.”
About Clerkie
Clerkie is an AI-powered financial automation platform that is purpose-built to help over 100 million Americans ease their debt burden. Clerkie’s systems help borrowers by providing personalized debt guidance and workout options to avoid delinquency and build their credit scores.
About Left Lane Capital: Founded in 2019, Left Lane Capital is a New York-based global venture capital and growth equity firm investing in internet and technology companies with a consumer orientation. Left Lane’s mission is to partner with extraordinary entrepreneurs who create category-defining companies across growth sectors of the economy, including software, healthcare, e-commerce, consumer, fintech, edtech, and other industries. Select investments include GoStudent, M1 Finance, Wayflyer, Bilt, Masterworks, Blank Street, Talkiatry, Tovala, and more. For more information, please visit www.leftlanecap.com.
SOURCE Clerkie
