Zest AI

Zest AI is a private financial software company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It develops and markets machine learning software used by underwriters to assess borrower risk.[1] Its software produces one of the more commonly digitized credit scores.[2]

Zest AI
TypePrivate
Founded2009
FounderDouglas Merrill
HeadquartersLos Angeles, California
Key people
Mike de Vere, Chief Executive Officer
ProductsCredit underwriting software
Websitezest.ai

History

Zest AI was founded by Douglas Merrill[3][4] in 2009 under the name ZestFinance.[1] The company started out as a direct-to-consumer subprime lender, before transitioning to selling its software to other lenders.[4][5] It changed its name from ZestFinance to Zest AI in October 2019[1] after founder Merrill left the company and Mike de Vere took his place as CEO.[6] By October 2020, it had raised $87 million in venture capital funding.[7]

Software

The company's software uses machine learning and thousands of data-points to score a borrower's risk.[2][8] It employs a technique called “adversarial de-biasing” where one AI creates an analytical model, and another criticizes that model for biases. The first AI then adjusts its models based on the biases identified by the criticizing AI.[9]

References
  1. Saha, S.N. (2020). The Digital Choices (in Maltese). Evincepub Publishing. p. 45. ISBN 978-93-89774-60-3.
  2. Lippert, John (October 11, 2014). "ZestFinance issues small, high-rate loans, uses big data to weed out deadbeats". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  3. Jenkins, Patrick (June 23, 2014). "Big data lends new Zest to banks' credit judgments". Financial Times. Retrieved April 17, 2021.
  4. Kim, Eugene (July 18, 2015). "Google's former CIO was deaf and dyslexic as a kid - now he's helping millions of Americans get emergency loans". Business Insider. Retrieved April 17, 2021.
  5. Clark, Liat (August 15, 2013). "ZestFinance CEO: 'We need data artists to save zombie borrowers'". WIRED UK. Retrieved April 17, 2021.
  6. Kahn, Jeremy (October 20, 2020). "Zest AI, which uses A.I. to make lending more inclusive, gets new funding". Fortune. Retrieved April 17, 2021.
  7. Wiggers, Kyle (October 20, 2020). "Zest raises $15 million to reduce loan algorithm bias". VentureBeat. Retrieved June 12, 2021.
  8. Allen, Karma (June 10, 2014). "Silicon Valley's rich want to bank America's poor". CNBC. Retrieved April 17, 2021.
  9. Totty, Michael (November 3, 2020). "How to Make Artificial Intelligence Less Biased". WSJ. Retrieved June 13, 2021.
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