Zest AI, a US-based credit lending risk assessment software provider backed by internet company Baidu, has secured $15m from growth equity firm Insight Partners.
Founded in 2009 as ZestFinance, Zest has built a software tool that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help lenders such as banks and credit unions evaluate potential customers seeking loans.
The funding will be used to further improve Zest AI’s fair lending scheme, which aims to debias lending models and assist borrowers from ethnic minority backgrounds with securing credit. It claims the software diminishes the gap in approval rates between white applicants and their minority counterparts by 30% with no change in portfolio risk.
Baidu had invested an undisclosed sum in Zest AI in 2016, and the company’s overall funding stood at more than $250m as of October 2015 when it closed a $150m round that featured Fortress Investment Group, now part of telecommunications and internet group SoftBank.
The company’s other shareholders include Eastward Capital Partners, Kensington Capital Holdings, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Northgate Capital.
