Black-Owned AI Startup Secures $10M Seed Funding for Private Credit Platform

AI operations platform Ellis AI announced it raised $10 million in seed funding from investors including First Round Capital, 645 Ventures, Harlem Capital, Khosla Ventures, Thrive Capital, Slow Capital, Kearny Jackson, and Ariel Alternatives CEO Mellody Hobson.

Its founder, Ryan Williams, is known for co-creating the real estate investment platform Cadre alongside Josh and Jared Kushner in 2014. “Ellis is the first-of-its-kind AI-native operating platform for private credit,” Williams said in a LinkedIn post. “We are making institutional-grade operations available to every private credit manager, not just the largest.”

About Ellis AI

Ellis helps private credit managers improve their workflow by integrating software such as accounting information, documents and spreadsheets into one platform, according to TechCrunch. The system also highlights data inconsistencies and uses AI agents to help execute tasks such as portfolio monitoring and report preparation.

“A team may have to download files from several systems, reformat the data, compare balances, investigate discrepancies, and re-enter information by hand. In many firms, Excel becomes the operating system,” he continued. “Ellis connects to the systems and documents a firm already uses rather than forcing it to rip everything out and start over,” he told TechCrunch.

Ellis Ai’s valuation

In April, Williams raised $11 million in seed funding for Ellis, led by early-stage venture firm First Round, with participation from Kearny Jackson, Slow Ventures, Khosla Ventures, 645 Ventures, and Thrive Capital, according to Forbes. The company is now valued at $40 million, according to one backer.

Image: Ryan William