Kita, a startup building artificial intelligence infrastructure for lending, has raised $4.5 million in a seed round led by BoxGroup and Y Combinator. The company aims to help financial institutions underwrite borrowers who are overlooked by traditional systems and expand access to credit globally.
Kita’s Indian American CTO Rhea Malhotra also said the company was hiring “exceptional engineers who are high-agency, and motivated by real-world problems across computer vision, fintech, and understanding global financial,” according to a LinkedIn post.
Malhotra said the new hires would receive $160,000 to $220,000 in compensation, along with meaningful equity. Relocation to San Francisco would also be covered. The LinkedIn post said hires would receive “real ownership over a product with global impact,” as well as “A high energy and close-knit team, plus team tennis, fun offsites, and travel around the world.” A $9,000 referral bonus was also mentioned.
READ: Etched valuation more than doubles to $21 billion in a month (August 19, 2026)
According to Kita, the company provides AI-powered credit assessment for some of the world’s largest microlenders, banks, fintechs and small and medium-sized business lenders. The company said the $4.5 million seed round will help it automate loan origination and underwriting analysis to identify creditworthy borrowers overlooked by traditional systems.
The funding round was led by BoxGroup and also includes Y Combinator, Golden Gate Ventures, BEENEXT, Kaya Founders, U.S. News Digital Ventures and Apex Star Capital, the family office of Xiaomi co-founder Lin Bin. A group of strategic angel investors, including Tala founder Shivani Siroya and Philippine business leader Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng, also participated.
READ: New Google program to help Indian AI startups to go global (January 16, 2026)
Kita said workflows that previously took days or months can now be completed in less than 60 seconds. The company has already processed more than $130 million in loan volume for lenders across the United States, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Its technology is currently used by lenders in the Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico and the U.S., with the company targeting consumer, microfinance and SME lending.
Kita was reportedly built at Stanford University by a team with experience at Apple, Tesla and Microsoft and is based in San Francisco.
“My co-founder, Rhea Malhotra and I became best friends after randomly sharing a one-bedroom apartment in Boston, and started building Kita while doing our master’s in Computer Science at Stanford University,” co-founder Carmel Limcaoco posted on LinkedIn. “What started as a dorm room project has now evolved into a global platform helping lenders get capital into the hands of those who need it most. Our mission is to make fair, fast, high-quality credit assessment possible for anyone, anywhere.”