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CompanyProfile

Helping SMBs scale

with top access to

credit, funding

an Francisco-based Tillful was established in ISO/MLS contact:
2015 by Flowcast, a Series A fintech backed
by ING Ventures, Experian Ventures, BitRock Ken So, CEO,
S Capital and Katalyst Ventures. By leveraging ken@tillful.com
artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML),
Flowcast helps financial institutions create high-perform- 408-218-1486
ing predictive models to assess risk and automatically www.tillful.com
optimize credit offerings.

As CEO of Tillful, Ken So's objective was to leverage
Flowcast's technology and expertise to give small and
midsize businesses (SMBs) free and real-time access to flow-based model applies real-time bank and credit card
credit scores, financial assessments, and actionable data transaction data to an ML-based credit model that assess-
to guide decisions about credit and cash flow. es business credit scores. These cash flow patterns could
include increasing or decreasing cash balance trends, ir-
Having grown up in an entrepreneurial small business regularities in inflow and outflow, and usage of overdraft
household, So had seen the difficulties SMBs face, espe- facilities, So stated.
cially with accessing capital to grow their businesses.
Poised for growth
"My dad had multiple businesses when I was very little, Recalling the early days, So mentioned his team began by
growing up in Hong Kong," So said. "He sold his busi- working out of a Philz Coffee, eventually moving to a co-
nesses to immigrate to Canada and started from scratch working space, followed by the Alchemist accelerator. "Al-
in Montreal. Being in a foreign land, we had no car at the chemist was our first network where we got plugged into
time and so we were doing deliveries on the subway train. the whole startup ecosystem," he said. "We got introduced
The whole family would help out and carry big boxes on to investors and other potential customers, which gave us
and off the train platforms." the foundation and infrastructure to scale. We didn't pay

SMB journey ourselves until we got the first check from a customer."
So recalled seeing his father carve out a niche as a whole- So further noted that Tillful, as Flowcast's recently
saler in Toronto, where he landed some large clients but launched flagship product, has facilitated over $10 mil-
kept his company small because he wanted to conserve lion in funding to small businesses. Today, So leads a
cash and avoid borrowing. So noted today's business 30-member team at Tillful and is on track to reach 80,000
owners have more opportunities and resources, stating SMB users in 2022. From a customer acquisition perspec-
he wanted to know what's keeping SMBs from scaling up tive, the company is growing at a rate of about 200 per-
and resolved to solve this problem. cent, achieving better-than-average performance ratings
in the online lending space, So noted.
"We recognized that there's over a $2 trillion financing
gap for small businesses. Knowing this was the essential Provisioning the SMB lifecycle
genesis of the company—we wanted to find ways to solve Tillful recently partnered with Experian to help SMBs es-
that," So said. To that end, Tillful was created with the fol- tablish Experian credit files and explore adding real-time
lowing key principles: transaction and cash-flow data into traditional business
• Collaboration: We over-index collaboration and credit scores. In addition, the company launched a se-
under-index individuality. cured business card to help SMBs improve their liquidity
and credit scores. SMBs qualify for the card after three
• Communication: Over-communicating is the months in business, So noted.
backbone of a successful, diverse team.
Established SMB clients can also qualify for Tillful Fund-
• Challenge: It takes courage to challenge and value ing and other capital sources, So added. "We don't want
each other's ideas. to be a one-and-done transaction or the type of company
that extracts as much as possible from small business
Unlike traditional credit scores from D&B, Experian and owners," he said. "We want to be alongside them from
Equifax, which are based on static factors, Tillful's cash- their inception to reaching their full potential."
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