Building a $100M+ FinTech Venture from Michigan: Ryan Rosett, Founder and Co-CEO of Credibly (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Is your whole team in Michigan? Are you doing this out of Michigan?

Ryan Rosett: We have three offices in the United States. Our Ops team is mostly in Southfield, Michigan including our Head of Strategies, our Chief Financial Officers, and CTO. Then, we have an office in New York city where our Head of Data Science works. Then, we have a bigger office out in Tempe, Arizona, where our Chief Credit Officer works and manages underwriting and the collection side of our business.

Sramana Mitra: How big is the team?

Ryan Rosett: It’s approximately two hundred people.

Sramana Mitra: This was pitched to me as a $5M plus business. Do you want to provide any further color on what your revenue levels and metrics are?

Ryan Rosett: We’re about a $100M in revenue. We’ve been profitable for the last 5-7 years. Every deal needs to be profitable for us to do it. If a competitor wants to do it at a lower rate, take more risks, that’s okay. That’s the way we operate.

Sramana Mitra: Did you bootstrap it all the way to $100M in revenue?

Ryan Rosett: In 2014, we took on a private equity partner called FlexPoint Ford. In April 2023, we did a management buyout where we bought their interest out. Now, it’s owned by the management team – my partner and I are majority owners of the company.

Sramana Mitra: Where do you think you want to take it? Is the management buyout because you wanted to keep the company private and not go public? Or do you intend to go public?

Ryan Rosett: No, we don’t have a huge interest in being public, but we do think there’re some strategic potential buyers out there that we would fit well into. I think we’re doing some of the most innovative things on the tech side. Everyone kind of throws out generative AI, but we have a few provisional patents pending. I think we’re doing some really cool stuff, and I’m excited for the future of the business.

Sramana Mitra: You want to discuss any of the Generative AI efforts?

Ryan Rosett: I’ll say what I can, because I don’t know what I’m allowed to say, to be honest at this point. So, we talk about the industry types. There’s never a great solution for underwriters to select the industry that they’re in. So we’ve developed a workflow of prompts and technology leveraging Gen AI with a much better degree of certainty for selecting the industry type, which then allows us to better categorize the business so that we can better call the risk.

That’s one example. There’re a number of different things that we have in process that are super exciting, and where we can hopefully continue to scale the business by upkiling our workforce and do more with less. That’s the hope.

Sramana Mitra: That was a wonderful story. I really enjoyed listening to it. It’s great that you’ve done this out of Michigan because Michigan does need serious entrepreneurship like yours. It’s wonderful to see that.

Ryan Rosett: Well, thank you so much. I don’t like talking about myself too much, but it’s a story that I’m proud of.

Sramana Mitra: You should be proud of it. Congratulations. Bye, Ryan. Thank you for sharing.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Building a $100M+ FinTech Venture from Michigan: Ryan Rosett, Founder and Co-CEO of Credibly
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