Zest AI, Inc.

Zest AI, Inc. is a financial technology company that builds machine-learning software for credit underwriting, fraud detection and lending analytics used by credit unions, banks and other lenders. The company was founded in 2009 as ZestFinance, Inc. by Douglas Merrill and Shawn Budde, executives from Google and Capital One, and is headquartered in Burbank, California. In June 2015, it announced a joint venture with JD.com, JD-ZestFinance Gaia, to build credit risk evaluation services for lenders in China, with an investment from JD.com, and in July 2016 it received a strategic investment from Baidu to apply its models to Baidu's search, location and payment data. In 2019, the company relaunched as Zest AI with a focus on empowering lenders with fair and inclusive AI. In October 2020, it received an investment from Insight Partners, whose managing director Lonne Jaffe joined the board. In September 2021, the company became a registered Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) and announced an investment from the Curql Fund that closed its Series E round. In November 2022, it raised a growth round co-led by Insight Partners and CMFG Ventures, with participation from credit union customers and partners. In February 2024, former National Credit Union Administration chairman Rodney Hood joined its board, and he rejoined in September 2025 after serving as Acting Comptroller of the Currency. In December 2024, Insight Partners made a growth investment, and in November 2025 the company closed a financing round led by five customers: SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union, Members 1st Federal Credit Union, ORNL Federal Credit Union, Truliant Federal Credit Union and Citi, through Citi Ventures.

Business/Product Breakdown

Zest AI sells AI-automated underwriting that builds a lender-specific machine-learning credit model from the lender's own data and then deploys it in the lender's decisioning process. The models draw on thousands of data variables rather than the handful used by generic credit scores, and the company states they can cover consumer loan types including auto, credit card, home equity, personal and small business loans. Fairness is built into the model development: the software runs less-discriminatory-alternative searches and applies adversarial debiasing, and in June 2023 the company announced FairBoost, a tool that reduces disparity in outcomes across protected groups in existing models. In March 2022, it released the Zest Race Predictor, an open-source algorithm that estimates race and ethnicity from a name and address. Underwriting is integrated with loan origination systems from partners including MeridianLink, Origence, Temenos and Sync1 Systems, and in 2023 the company opened the product to smaller credit unions. In 2020, Freddie Mac began using the company's machine-learning tools to improve its credit decisioning models, and the company announced a strategic alliance with LexisNexis Risk Solutions in August 2020 to bring alternative data into its models.

In August 2024, the company introduced Zest Protect, an application fraud detection product that scores first-party fraud, third-party fraud, compromised identity and income discrepancy during loan decisioning, with configurable thresholds and reason codes. Zest Protect was integrated with MeridianLink in January 2025, Temenos in April 2025 and Origence's arc OS in June 2025. The company's lending intelligence offering includes Portfolio, Applicant and Marketing reports covering credit migration by vintage, pricing and peer comparisons, and pre-screen targeting. In February 2024, it unveiled LuLu, a generative AI lending intelligence companion, followed by LuLu Pulse for peer benchmarking and financial analysis in February 2025 and LuLu Strategy for simulations and performance analysis in May 2025. A Success Plan service pairs each lender with data scientists, business analysts and compliance specialists through proof of concept, model refinement, policy optimization, deployment and ongoing monitoring.

Zest AI serves credit unions, banks, auto and specialty lenders, and describes credit unions as its fastest-growing segment. Customers named in company announcements include Blue Federal Credit Union, GreenState Credit Union, HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union, Credit Union West, IH Credit Union, Suncoast Credit Union, VyStar Credit Union, Golden 1 Credit Union, Citibank, First National Bank of Omaha and Truist, and in 2026 Zions Bank and Hawaii State Federal Credit Union selected the company. In 2021, it joined other fintech companies in founding the Financial Technology Association, and in February 2026 Commonwealth Credit Union launched the CU Lending Collective, a CUSO powered by Zest AI's technology for small credit unions. Cornerstone League and GoWest Credit Union Association became the first credit union leagues to deploy LuLu. The company has been ranked on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and named to the CNBC World's Top FinTech Companies list in 2025 and 2026. Its board has included representatives of Upfront Ventures, Matrix Partners and Insight Partners, and its investors have included Lightspeed Venture Partners, Flybridge Capital, Baidu, Fortress Investment Group and a group of credit unions.