Our Mission

In 2023, Silicon Valley Bank's collapse wiped out our active seed round overnight. We moved our remaining capital into a business account at the credit union we'd trusted for twenty years — first car loan, first credit card, first mortgage. When we needed a commercial loan to extend our runway, our loan officer told us, "We don't do that," and referred us out to lenders in her network.

That harmless referral nearly cost us everything.

What followed was hell inside a black box. The first lender couldn't fund the deal, so they forwarded our file to someone else. That lender passed it to another. Tax returns, bank statements, social security numbers — sent via email to strangers at institutions we'd never heard of. By the fourth or fifth lender, we didn't know who had our information or whether anyone could actually help. We were a forwarded email thread getting longer by the week.

The credit union we trusted most had no visibility into where we'd ended up. The institution that knew our financial history for two decades couldn't see who was reviewing our file or whether we were being protected at all. The relationship we'd built over twenty years ended the moment they said "we don't do that."

The experience damaged our credit, exposed our personal information, and cost us months of runway. We later learned we were perfect candidates for conventional commercial financing. We were never offered that option. For Black and minority entrepreneurs, this pattern is nearly twice as common as the national average.

Through that wreckage, we found our mission. The $2 trillion commercial financing gap isn't a lack of capital — it's a systemic failure. 90% of credit unions either have stricter credit boxes or lack the origination infrastructure altogether. When they can't fund the deal, the member gets referred out, and the credit union loses visibility, control, and ultimately the deposits and the relationship they spent years building.

We're building GlassBox Verified so no institution ever has to look a loyal depositor in the eye and say "We don't do that."