Fintech company Levr.ai raises $1M pre-seed

Levr.ai, a Vancouver-based fintech company steadfast in transforming the way businesses access and manage loans, announced a $1 million pre-seed raise. Levr’s round definitely has plenty of local flavour. It was co-led by Sprout.vc’s Sprout Fund II (no stranger to investing in B.C.-based companies) and Mavan Capital Partners (a Kelowna firm).

Levr’s additional venture and angel investors include the Vancouver-based trio Weave VC, AC100 VC, and Red Thread Ventures. Also on the investment roster are locals Teal Linde, Emily Davies, and Paul Podolny. Additionally, Levr tapped into non-dilutive capital from NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program Canada and BDC.

Leveraging its strengths: Levr aims to make the process of finding, applying for, and managing business loans easy. Its software uses accounting and banking APIs (a way for different platforms to communicate with each other) to accelerate the process of looking for a loan, applying for a loan, and managing existing loans. Levr currently has over 15 lender partners and has funded nearly $2.5 million in loans for its business clients.

The company’s co-founding duo combines rich histories in different spaces. CEO Kaylan Pepin has experience working at two of Canada’s largest banks, RBC and CIBC, while CTO Roman Hartmann launched into a career heavily focused on data, AI, and machine learning.

Levr’s leadership team is now five members strong and this pre-seed investment will power its plans: geographic footprint growth and digital client acquisition and partnerships, the company says. Specifically, the funds raised will be invested in growing the existing team and expanding its reach to service U.S.-based businesses.

Pulling on the lever of financing: “Over my career, I‘ve seen many qualified businesses struggle to get financing,” said Pepin. “Even worse than the complex loan application process is the lack of software tools available to manage active business loans. We’re building Levr to solve these issues.”

“When we learned how driven Levr is to get businesses better and easier access to funding, this investment really resonated with our team,” said Laine Nevison, managing partner of Mavan Capital Partners. “The demand is there, and the problem needs to be solved.”

“We’re very impressed with Levr’s strong founders and solid management team, domain expertise, as well as the extensive opportunities available in this market,” said Mark Benning, general partner of Sprout.vc.