Credit and Lending Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) in the San Francisco Bay Area 2026

Commercial lenders manage billions in assets on legacy software and manual workflows, their systems live on people’s heads like its the 90s. Zolvo replaces the entire back office with AI: automated data ingestion, invoice reconciliation, collections outreach, and funder monitoring. Our clients go live in weeks and eliminate hours of daily manual work per operator, allowing teams to only handle exceptions. We're building the future of commercial lending.

Proximitty is the AI operating system for commercial loans - we build regulator-grade AI agents that ingest and parse documents, spread financials, automate loan operations and track covenants. We help FDIC-insured banks and fintechs underwrite faster and scale their loan books without scaling costs.

Copperlane helps mortgage lenders accelerate the loan process and reduce mistakes in an application. We use AI agents to understand an applicant's profile, verify their documents, and complete initial underwriting tasks.

Veritus is a omni-channel platform for deploying AI agents for loan servicing and collections, including inbound and outbound voice agents. Our agents negotiate repayment plans, follow up across channels, and drive recoveries with zero human involvement. By combining cutting edge voice AI with deep regulatory compliance and vertical specialization we're able to drastically reduce the cost-to-collect while increasing recovery rates.

Chestnut is the first AI mortgage lender. We automate 99% of human work with AI agents, saving customers 0.5%+ in interest. This is Spencer's second mortgage startup; the first processes 2% of US mortgages annually. So far, Chestnut is licensed in Texas and Colorado where we power purchases, refinances, cash-outs, and more.

1 in 4 Americans do not get their full 401(k) match. That means 25 million workers are leaving $24 billion on the table in free employer contributions. The primary reason these workers cannot get their match is because they do not have enough to both cover living expenses and invest. Lendtable helps workers get thousands in additional income by giving them a cash advance to cover their living expenses so they can finally begin earning their employer match. Once their money has vested we take some of the match money earned in order to cover our expenses. Workers now have thousands of dollars more without putting any money down, and we make money helping them do so -- we win if they win.

Grain is a mobile app that transforms the debit card you already have into a credit card by linking it to a line of credit based on your cash flow. For the millennials, Gen Zs, and immigrants who are afraid of falling into crippling credit card debt, there is now a distinct market opportunity to offer an alternative to how these 100M people access and manage credit.

We build AI agents for loan servicing and collections Prodigal has AI agents for loan servicing and collections. Our AI agents and apps help teams improve margins, run leaner operations, and maximize payments. We are working towards an Agentic vision for consumer finance wherein our AI agents automate critical roles, enhance operations, and drive revenue.  Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Prodigal's global team combines deep expertise in financial services, AI research, and product innovation, driving efficiency and transformative results across the consumer finance landscape.

Investment firm specializing in alternative investments involving legal and regulatory risk.

Level provides fast and simple financing to lending startups that gets them off the ground and grows with them as they scale. We do so by buying loans in small quantities at first and rewarding our customers with more access to capital based on performance. Co-founder & CEO, Vladimir Korshin, previously worked in the traditional venture debt system at Silicon Valley Bank, where he noticed that strong startups were frequently denied from non-dilutive financing because they were too small. Just 4 weeks after going live with our first customer, we purchased $1.3M in loans across 6 customers. The founding team brings 30+ years of startup experience: Vladimir previously worked as an operator at Facebook, Eventbrite, and Niantic; Asa Schachar was an engineer at Microsoft and managed teams of engineers at Optimizely; Molly Hogan led new and international product initiatives at Amazon for over 7 years. Level is backed by Liquid2, Y Combinator (S21), and others. https://www.trylevel.app/

Finley simplifies debt capital raise and management. Our software helps companies like Ramp, Arc and Parafin automate due diligence, ensure compliance, and streamline ongoing reporting with their capital providers. Our team brings experience from Goldman Sachs, Nova Credit, and Palantir Technologies, and is backed by Y Combinator and Bain Capital Ventures.

Dharma is the only Ethereum wallet capable of seamlessly moving money between any US bank account and decentralized exchanges like Uniswap. The net result is a product that looks & feels like Coinbase on steroids — Download an App. Plug in your bank. Invest in the exponentially growing universe of tokens & yield opportunities in DeFi with a tap.

Landed helps employers develop programs that increase access to homeownership for their employees. We do this by unlocking the power of shared appreciation to create down payment programs tailored to the needs of each institution, improving recruitment and retention of key talent. Unlike other programs, shared appreciation is mutually beneficial to funders and buyers, creating a self-renewing pool of capital that recycles as homebuyers exit the program.

Stilt/Onbo enables you to launch credit products without a bank sponsor. We have built APIs to abstract complexity around licenses, regulatory compliance, underwriting, loan management system, credit reporting, and debt capital. We are backed by fintech investors including Y Combinator, Link Ventures, Hillsven Capital, Petrushka investments (early backer of Lending Club, Zillow, Check, Pets.com), and CEOs of billion-dollar fintech companies.