[ { "id": 763, "name": "Bankjoy", "slug": "bankjoy", "former_names": [], "small_logo_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/134b12b221534d10b8b6f4ff8ae5da4a440320ad.png", "website": "http://bankjoy.com", "all_locations": "Troy, MI, USA; Remote", "long_description": "Bankjoy provides a full suite of modern digital banking software, including mobile banking, online banking, online account opening, loan applications, and conversational AI to banks and credit unions.", "one_liner": "An end-to-end digital banking solution for banks and credit unions", "team_size": 60, "industry": "Fintech", "subindustry": "Fintech -> Banking and Exchange", "launched_at": 1416220006, "tags": [ "Banking as a Service", "Conversational Banking", "Fintech" ], "tags_highlighted": [], "top_company": false, "isHiring": false, "nonprofit": false, "batch": "Winter 2015", "status": "Active", "industries": [ "Fintech", "Banking and Exchange" ], "regions": [ "United States of America", "America / Canada", "Remote", "Fully Remote" ], "stage": "Growth", "app_video_public": false, "demo_day_video_public": false, "app_answers": null, "question_answers": null, "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/bankjoy", "api": "https://devasheeshg.github.io/yc-api/batches/winter-2015/bankjoy.json", "year_founded": 2015, "city": "Troy", "country": "US", "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/bankjoy", "x_url": "https://twitter.com/bankjoy", "fb_url": null, "cb_url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bankjoy", "github_url": null, "logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/134b12b221534d10b8b6f4ff8ae5da4a440320ad.png", "app_video_url": null, "dday_video_url": null, "company_photos": [], "primary_partner": null, "founders": [ { "user_id": 16007, "full_name": "Mike Duncan", "title": "Founder/CEO", "founder_bio": "Mike Duncan is the founder and CEO of Bankjoy, a Detroit-based digital banking startup. Before starting Bankjoy, Mike developed banking software for a Michigan-based credit union. He also developed payments and financial software for Unisys and the Detroit Tigers. Mike studied computer science at Kettering University in Flint, MI.", "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/HelloMike", "x_url": "https://twitter.com/MikeElDuncan", "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/310b11dce072fc47d66def9ab9d121a5a47217dd.jpg" } ], "jobs": [], "news": [], "launches": [] }, { "id": 28811, "name": "Casca", "slug": "casca", "former_names": [ "CORE Ai", "Cascading AI" ], "small_logo_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/db0a05cec73fa1efa5d096d33cfcc210c8930955.png", "website": "https://www.cascading.ai/", "all_locations": "San Francisco, CA, USA", "long_description": "Casca is building AGI for Banking.\r\n\r\nOur first product is an AI-native platform transforming small business lending by enabling banks and lenders to originate 10x more loans with 90% less manual effort. We’ve found product market fit already serving top 10 US banks and are scaling our team very quickly.\r\n\r\nSmall businesses are the heart of the American economy. Many banks shy away from providing funding because of the manual effort in pursuing those deals. With us, that changes. We unlock affordable, quick bank funding for the 30M+ small businesses in the US who would otherwise be subject to the high interest rates from predatory online lenders.\r\n\r\nWe are a world-class team of banking & AI experts from Stanford, MIT & Y Combinator. We like to win and we know that the only thing between us and the title is our own ability to improve every day.", "one_liner": "Make Banking Magical", "team_size": 40, "industry": "Fintech", "subindustry": "Fintech", "launched_at": 1691481257, "tags": [ "Conversational Banking", "Fintech", "Machine Learning", "Finance", "AI" ], "tags_highlighted": [], "top_company": false, "isHiring": true, "nonprofit": false, "batch": "Summer 2023", "status": "Active", "industries": [ "Fintech" ], "regions": [ "United States of America", "America / Canada" ], "stage": "Growth", "app_video_public": false, "demo_day_video_public": false, "app_answers": null, "question_answers": [ { "question": "What is the core problem you are solving? Why is this a big problem? What made you decide to work on it?", "answer": "**Banking IT is broken**: 30 year old legacy systems, failing RPA projects and millions of people doing manual repetitive work. Over years in the industry, we saw how the financial industry was struggling to deal with mountains of unstructured data and failed to live up to customer expectations. Loan applicants have to go through humiliatingly slow application processes when they really needed someone to count on (no wonder look-to-book churn rates are at 65-80%) - the mania of manual workflows has to end\\\\Money runs the world. Banks are critical and we need fresh talent to shake up a $25T industry." }, { "question": "What is your long-term vision? If you truly succeed, what will be different about the world?", "answer": "**Unlocking $1T in value for global banks** and making banking magical for billions of customers" } ], "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/casca", "api": "https://devasheeshg.github.io/yc-api/batches/summer-2023/casca.json", "year_founded": 2023, "city": "San Francisco", "country": "US", "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/cascading-ai/?viewAsMember=true", "x_url": "", "fb_url": null, "cb_url": null, "github_url": null, "logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/db0a05cec73fa1efa5d096d33cfcc210c8930955.png", "app_video_url": null, "dday_video_url": null, "company_photos": [], "primary_partner": { "name": "Jared Friedman", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/people/jared-friedman" }, "founders": [ { "user_id": 1361486, "full_name": "Lukas Haffer", "title": "Founder/CEO", "founder_bio": "Lukas is the CEO & Co-founder of Cascading AI. He previously served as Chief of Staff for the European Market at Avaloq (a globally leading provider of core banking software with $4 Trillion in Assets managed on the platform. Lukas holds an MBA from Stanford University, where he graduated as an Arjay-Miller Scholar (top 10%).", "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": "https://linkedin.com/in/lukashaffer", "x_url": "", "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/2a855142800aa28353a0259b59092eec00fa218b.jpg" } ], "jobs": [ { "id": 79577, "title": "Don't See the Perfect Fit?", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/casca/jobs/b5IKSoC-don-t-see-the-perfect-fit", "location": "San Francisco", "type": "Full-time", "role": "Operations", "role_type": null, "salary_range": "$100K - $200K", "equity_range": "", "experience": "Any (new grads ok)", "visa": "US citizen/visa only", "skills": [] }, { "id": 97521, "title": "Technical Recruiter", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/casca/jobs/7mHU8Y2-technical-recruiter", "location": "San Francisco", "type": "Full-time", "role": "Recruiting & HR", "role_type": "Recruiter", "salary_range": "", "equity_range": "", "experience": "Any (new grads ok)", "visa": "US citizen/visa only", "skills": [] }, { "id": 97523, "title": "Forward Deployed Engineer", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/casca/jobs/uDbuq7M-forward-deployed-engineer", "location": "San Francisco", "type": "Full-time", "role": "Engineering", "role_type": "Full stack", "salary_range": "", "equity_range": "", "experience": "Any (new grads ok)", "visa": "US citizen/visa only", "skills": [] }, { "id": 97524, "title": "Head of Security & Compliance", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/casca/jobs/of4eYL1-head-of-security-compliance", "location": "San Francisco", "type": "Full-time", "role": "Operations", "role_type": null, "salary_range": "", "equity_range": "", "experience": "5+ years", "visa": "US citizen/visa only", "skills": [] }, { "id": 97525, "title": "Director of Customer Support", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/casca/jobs/KAmSBwh-director-of-customer-support", "location": "San Francisco", "type": "Full-time", "role": "Support", "role_type": null, "salary_range": "", "equity_range": "", "experience": "5+ years", "visa": "US citizen/visa only", "skills": [] } ], "news": [ { "title": "Series A announcement", "url": "https://www.cascading.ai/company/series-a-announcement", "date": "Aug 19, 2025" }, { "title": "FIs Explore GenAI in SMB Lending Despite Customer Concerns", "url": "https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2024/financial-institutions-explore-generative-ai-potential-small-business-lending-despite-customer-concerns/", "date": "Feb 12, 2024" }, { "title": "Cascading AI Secures $3.9 Million in Pre-Seed Funding to Revolutionize the Banking Industry with its AI-native Loan Origination System", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cascading-ai-secures-3-9-million-in-pre-seed-funding-to-revolutionize-the-banking-industry-with-its-ai-native-loan-origination-system-302058481.html", "date": "Feb 09, 2024" }, { "title": "Bankwell Bank pilots generative AI in small-business lending | American Banker", "url": "https://www.americanbanker.com/news/bankwell-bank-pilots-generative-ai-in-small-business-lending", "date": "Feb 08, 2024" } ], "launches": [ { "id": 73899, "title": "🤖 Cascading AI - Automate manual banking processes", "tagline": "Lending, account opening, customer service, back-office processing ... ", "body": "Watch our launch video [here](https://youtu.be/NFJvgmm4lIs).\n\n**tl;dr**: _Banks, credit unions, and fintechs spend billions to train and employ staff to handle complex systems and ever-growing service portfolios. Our AI agents make your teams 10x faster by navigating existing systems, surfacing the right information, and even communicating compliantly with your customers._\n\n### **🏆THE TEAM**\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=73899&key=user_uploads/1361486/1a6a8344-6014-46dd-81da-a861bd539b7e)\n\n**Lukas Haffer** **(CEO, Stanford GSB 23)** spent the past 4 years deploying core banking systems and outsourcing banking processes as Chief of Staff for Europe at Avaloq (one of the world’s leading core banking system providers).\n\n**Isaiah Williams (CTO, Stanford CS 22)** spent the past 4 years building conversational AI and production ML applications as a Senior ML engineer at EliseAI (one of the world’s leading conversational AI companies).\n\n### \n\n### **WHAT CAN AI DO FOR BANKING?**\n\n**Lending & Onboarding**: 300,000+ loan officers spend hours on the phone or e-mail getting applicants to complete their applications before they churn to competitors - our AI agent Leo does not give up until he has all the documents he needs.\n\n> Even if we pre-qualify more applicants, we don’t close more loans - because my loan officers can only have one conversation at a time.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=73899&key=user_uploads/1361486/3b366876-5474-45ab-ba82-ffd1d6a6d59b)\n\n**Customer service**: 30,000+ daily service requests present an insane challenge to the staff of a mid-sized bank, trying to navigate multiple outdated systems and product categories - our AI agent Tom navigates their systems, surfaces the right information, and drafts responses to your clients.\n\n> Customer support has become an insane job - my teams need to navigate 15 different systems just to help 1 customer.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=73899&key=user_uploads/1361486/4cc6b719-7ac1-4321-95d1-e88f98d160d0)\n\n**Back-office**: at one bank 50,000+ payments are halted every day for reasons as simple as a typo in the recipient account ID - our AI agent Anna analyzes unstructured financial information to recommend resolutions.\n\n> Even with 99% STP-rates (straight through processing) in payments, we have to manually handle thousands of exceptions.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=73899&key=user_uploads/1361486/c4385ccb-a65f-4e51-9c54-0f7b8ca54a54)\n\n### **❌ THE PROBLEM**\n\nAntiquated systems and manual exception handling slow down crucial banking processes, costing banks billions. Traditional robotic process automation (RPA) could not handle unstructured information. Traditional chatbots quickly reach their limits of usefulness. And custom ML applications take months (if not years) to develop from scratch.\n\n### **✅ OUR SOLUTION**\n\n_Cascading AI agents integrate with the bank's existing IT infrastructure (in their private cloud or on-premise), learn to use their systems, and work with unstructured financial data to automate core processes._\n\n### **HOW IT WORKS**\n\n1. **Our Agents have eyes**: we use computer vision to read documents & integrate with existing systems on a UI level in addition to your APIs\n2. **Our Agents can talk**: we use conversational AI to communicate with customers or colleagues via SMS, E-Mail, Slack, Teams, secure messaging, or ticket management systems\n3. **Our Agents know banking**: we monitor agents in human-in-the-loop systems and align them with banking regulation and compliance policies\n\n### **OUR ASK**\n\n* Connect us with Banks, Credit Unions, or Fintechs looking to automate manual processes and improve customer communication.\n* Book a [demo](https://calendly.com/lhaffer/30-min-meeting?month=2023-08) or email us at [lukas@cascading.ai](mailto:lukas@cascading.ai)\n* Follow Cascading AI on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/cascading-ai)", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/JDv-cascading-ai-automate-manual-banking-processes", "votes": 21, "created_at": "2023-08-08T15:24:50.943Z" } ] } ]