By Tatiana Bautzer
NEW YORK, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Boston-based startup EnFi is raising $15 million with venture capital funds to increase deployment of artificial intelligence agents that analyze and make decisions on credit applications.
The round is led by Fintop, with Patriot Financial Partners, Commerce Ventures, Unusual Ventures and Boston Seed Capital. These investors are linked to more than 150 financial institutions, mainly regional or community banks. The round raises total financing to $22.5
million.
Joshua Summers, EnFi co-founder and CEO, says regional and community banks have been unable to fill credit analyst positions, restricting how many credit applications they can review. "The use of the artificial intelligence agents makes the smaller banks much more competitive in credit," he said in an interview with Reuters, adding that smaller banks have thousands of credit analyst positions unfilled at any given time.
Each bank has been adapting the agents to the needs of their specific credit portfolios. "As the agents learn, they help increase lending volume quickly," said Scott Weller, co-founder and EnFi's chief technology officer. In some cases, credit analysts using the agents suggested new use cases to reduce menial tasks, such as screening credit documents for discrepancies. The use of artificial intelligence also makes it easier to check applicants' leverage, collateral and credit history.
(Reporting by Tatiana Bautzer; Editing by Andrea Ricci )
