# AI-Powered Embedded Lending for SaaS

> A NachoTuesday interview — the C-Suite Insights series from NachoNacho, the B2B SaaS and AI
> marketplace. In conversation with Mickey Konson, CEO, Quanum Lending Solutions.

- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/nachotuesday/video/AI-Powered-Embedded-Lending-for-SaaS
- **Guest:** Mickey Konson, CEO, Quanum Lending Solutions
- **Guest on LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickeykonson/
- **Recorded:** 2026-08-04
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vyhxqD_fk4

## Summary

In this interview, Mickey Konson, CEO of Quantum Lending Solutions, explains how embedded lending allows SaaS platforms, marketplaces, and technology companies to seamlessly offer credit to their small business customers. By integrating financing directly into the platforms where business owners are already conducting commerce, Quantum solves the traditional hurdles of accessing capital. The white-labeled API solution leverages a platform's existing user data to instantly pre-qualify businesses for fair, long-term loans. This turnkey approach allows tech companies to unlock new revenue streams, boost sales, and significantly increase customer retention without taking on the heavy regulatory, compliance, or servicing burdens associated with the financial sector. 5 Key Takeaways: The Small Business Capital Ga p: Small businesses typically struggle to secure efficient financing, often getting stuck between slow, traditional bank loans that require hard assets and fast, but aggressively expensive, short-term fintech cash advances. The Power of Embedded Lending : Quantum Lending Solutions enables SaaS companies to offer native, white-labeled credit products directly inside their own dashboards, meeting customers exactly where they already do business. Data-Driven Underwriting : By leveraging the data already living on a SaaS platform (such as sales volume, inventory, or payment history), Quantum uses AI and rapid processing to confidently pre-qualify users and make sound credit decisions instantly. Mutual Growth for Platforms : Integrating an embedded lending solution doesn't just help the end-user; it allows the SaaS platform to generate new cross-sell revenue, finance large software purchases, and create highly "sticky" relationships that improve long-term retention. Turnkey and Risk-Free Integration : Platforms do not need to become financial institutions or secure banking licenses. Quantum handles all compliance, underwriting, and loan servicing, offering integration options that range from a simple referral page set up in hours to a deep API integration taking one to three months.

## Full transcript

Andy Karuza: Good afternoon everybody and welcome to another Nacho Tuesday, and today I have Mickey here with Quantum Lending Solutions. Without further ado, we would love if you can introduce yourself and your company. Mickey Konson: Sure Andy, thanks for having me on here. My name is Mickey Konson, as Andy said I'm the CEO of Quantum Lending Solutions. We're an embedded lending platform. We work a lot with banks, marketplaces, technology platforms, and SaaS providers to provide credit to their small business customers. It's an area that I know a lot about. I've been in the industry for about 25 years—all small business payments, lending, banking, you know, any solutions related to the small business franchise, so spent a lot of time there. Originally from South Africa, lived in the US for 26 years now, and so that's a little bit about my background. Andy Karuza: Great, what's the big problem that you guys are trying to solve over there at Quantum Lending Solutions? Mickey Konson: So I think the problem we're trying to solve here is that, you know, for small business owners, getting access to credit is a perennial problem in the US market. There's very few options for them, and it's very difficult for them to go through the process of applying for credit, especially if they don't have hard assets. So there's a lot of asset-backed lending available through banks, there's a lot of very slow SBA-type lending available, but if you're a standard business, you're a services-based, or you don't have a lot of assets, it's really difficult to get credit. So the problem that we're trying to solve is not just access to credit, but access to credit really efficiently and quickly, because small business owners are really busy. They have very complicated lives, they do not want to spend months and months applying for a loan, going back and forth, you know, collecting documentation. So it's not just I think the problem we're trying to solve, it's how we're trying to solve it, which is the way that I would state it is that we're trying to provide credit to business owners where they're already conducting business, which is typically, you know, on a platform or in a marketplace, or in some type of area where they're conducting commerce. Andy Karuza: Great, what's the opportunity with embedded lending that you could offer for SaaS companies? Mickey Konson: So the opportunity for embedded lending is really twofold. So one is, you know, as I mentioned earlier, it's a place that small business owners already conduct business. They're already, you know, purchasing a platform, it's helping them run their business, it's helping them, you know, sell or account for their business or bill—it doesn't matter what part of the business the platform is helping them with, but the business owner is already conducting commerce there. They already have, you know, linkages there, and so it's a natural place for them to obtain credit. But the other piece is that it turns out it's actually very difficult to make a sound credit decision in the small business lending space. People have very complicated lives, you may have multiple owners of a business, you may have an owner that owns multiple businesses, they have seasonality. So it's a complex problem to underwrite, and what solves that is data and technology. And so when you have a SaaS platform that has actual data—it could have sales data, it could have purchase data, it could have any amount of data that can be used in underwriting—what that can do is it can allow a platform like us to work with a SaaS provider to actually pre-qualify customers. And that makes it much more compelling for the small business owner, it makes it more efficient, it doesn't waste anybody's time, and it actually helps make a sound credit decision. So that's I think the reason why this type of embedded lending can be very powerful for a SaaS platform and for their business customers. Andy Karuza: That's actually pretty interesting. So you're able to take data that maybe this platform has that exists already for the customer and use that to be able to qualify their customers for lending. A lot of other platforms, you know, just out of the box lending solutions don't really have that capability because they don't have that connection to the back end and data to be able to make that assessment on the customer. Mickey Konson: Yeah, I mean, you know, again the problem we're trying to solve is not just provide credit but provide it really efficiently. You know, we want to make it really easy for the business owner, and frankly, because we only work through platforms, we only work through clients, you know, we have to make this a surprise and delight moment for them. And so you don't want to decline them, you don't want to waste their time or engage in a long process, you wanted to make it really quick and seamless and easy for them. Andy Karuza: Yeah, and what do you see as some of the biggest problems in lending today? I feel like a lot of them rely on like old school methodologies like credit scores, that kind of thing. What other problems exist in the industry that you guys are looking to solve? Mickey Konson: Yeah, so I think, I mean you hit the nail on the head. I think there's a couple of threads of the problem. One is that it's very old school, right? So you have a lot of very traditional underwriting, it can rely on assets or do you have inventory or real estate or something like that, which again is not a very modern way, and it's not really where most small businesses exist today. And so that can work for bigger businesses, it just doesn't work for the majority of businesses. So on the one hand, there's a very traditional underwriting approach. For a lot of the smaller businesses, where providers have defaulted to is consumer underwriting, particularly in the credit card space. So again, that has its own shortcomings, and so that doesn't really give enough credit to the business owner. And then I think the other problem is really a very modern technology-oriented problem, but it's still a problem, which is that a lot of the newer fintech options available to business owners are very high cost and very short term. And so a lot of embedded lending today fits into sort of a merchant cash advance type framework where the loan is typically less than a year, could be six months, could be nine months, and APRs are typically, you know, mid to high double digits, so it could be 40, 50, you know, 60, 70 and upward percent on an APR basis, which may still help the business if they're trying to close an order, but it's not a very enduring solution for them. And so I think you're stuck between the sort of old traditional asset-based lending or modern fast but very high price, low utility credit. And so what we try to do here at Quantum Lending Solutions, and we're typically lending as I said through partners including banks, our way that we like to talk about ourselves is we offer lending products that your customers would actually recognize as a lending product. Like it would have a price they would recognize, it would have a structure they would recognize, it wouldn't be a very complex loan. And so we're really trying to fulfill the long-term enduring working capital need for most of the sort of small business market in the country. Andy Karuza: Yep, what are some of the ideal SaaS platforms that can work with you and what do some of those deals look like? Can you maybe give some examples of some use cases that you've seen that are pretty popular? Mickey Konson: Sure, sure. So I think, you know, I would just say that any part of the industry can work really well here. Parts of the industry are quite well penetrated in for this type of lending already, so restaurants for instance, right? So most restaurants obviously have a merchant platform, they usually have some kind of SaaS platform they're running their floor on or their booking system, and I think there's a lot of lending that happens through that. So the restaurant space is pretty well served right now. I think e-commerce as well, right? E-commerce is a space where it's less well served than the restaurant space, but e-commerce is a really good use case here because there's a couple reasons for this. One is for somebody who's actually working through an e-commerce platform, there's lots of data available. So the lender with a high probability can provide a really strong qualified offer to them because they know what their sales are, right? So you know what their inventory is, you know what their orders look like, so there's a lot of good sales data through there. And so e-commerce is a really good example of this. One more use case that actually works really well is we do work with some platforms where they have a very high-priced product. So this product could be 50 to 100k a year, it could be a really expensive product, and so in that case our loan can actually be used to finance the product, right? And so you're not just providing a general liquidity to the business owner, but you're actually helping the platform generate more sales because they're providing an easier way for themselves to get paid through that. So there's lots of use cases, almost any platform there will have their own unique business case, but I would say that the ones that work the best are where there's lots of data to make a pre-qualified offer, something in the sales space would be best, and where there's a product that can be financed, that tends to work the best. Andy Karuza: Yeah, and definitely probably some history to the customer as well too where you could see you know payments over time. Mickey Konson: Yep exactly. Yeah, I mean almost any data, any relationship with a customer can serve as some proxy for credit risk, right? And so obviously there's a hierarchy there, but any data can be used, and today it's very easy to build models and to incorporate that into a technology product. Andy Karuza: This is interesting. So will this potentially unlock new revenue stream opportunities for companies as well, not just, you know, helping support converting customers and helping enable purchases and all that, but what are some opportunities maybe for the platforms themselves to be able to generate more money? Mickey Konson: Yeah, no absolutely. I mean you've outlined well, there are organic opportunities that come from providing a product like this, but we typically enter into a cross-sell agreement with platforms, and so they actually make an additional revenue stream just like we do when a loan gets sold. And so we really construct it anyway, sometimes it depends on the platform, some platforms like to be paid points up front, some of them actually want to have more of a SaaS-like revenue stream over time so they can basically get paid over time as the loan gets paid down. It really doesn't matter to us, can be very flexible depending on what the goals of the platform are from a financial perspective. But typically it's not just about doing right by their customers, it's also about increasing the financial performance of the platform. Andy Karuza: Yeah, I also feel like there might be a lot of opportunities in retention and engagement with your existing customers. How could a solution like this maybe lead towards that, because it's not just about converting your customer, it's about keeping the customer over a longer period of time. Mickey Konson: Yeah, so credit products tend to be quite sticky for a couple reasons. So one is, you know, if you do a loan it's typically could be two, three, four years, it's a long period of time. We offer both a loan and a line of credit, and so a line of credit is even stickier because it has ongoing utility, right? So they could draw, pay it down, they could draw, they can continue to use it, it helps kind of through seasonality. And because we can completely private label our platform, right? So even though we're Quantum Lending Solutions and we're really proud of our brand and our name, we're very seldom on the front door, right? It's usually our client's name that's on the front door in a private label platform. And so when we offer a product, it can be in the name of the platform itself which I think creates sort of an enduringly sticky relationship with the customer when they have both a financial product as well as a platform product like a SaaS product. Andy Karuza: Great. So I know AI's really transformed a lot of industries, how do you see it transforming your industry and lending going forward? Mickey Konson: Yeah, so I think you know for us, when it comes to the way that we engage with customers, the two biggest problems there have typically been around product engagement and data and decisioning, right? And so product engagement is typically around having to fill out a form, a really long form. We move those forms online, and now those can all be pre-filled, you pull data from multiple platforms, and so effectively the product side of AI has made that incredibly efficient now. And so that's an important part of it. I think the biggest leverage point has been around data processing, the ability to make decisions really quickly. And so as a fintech we've always tried to be as digital as we can from a decisioning perspective. Digital isn't always instant, right? Those are different things. And so now the digital funnel can suck up a lot more data, a lot more data is available, and you can build the ability to go and find that data and then you can decision it much, much more quickly now. The processing power, the models that you can build, your ability to deploy models incredibly quickly and to update them weekly, daily even if you need to, is much greater than it used to be. And so what that's done for us I think has given us the ability to just process these requests much more quickly, much more efficiently. Andy Karuza: Great, so what would you say about the naysayers on AI, a lot of people are worried about risk management, is there any risk associated with it, or is that pretty much mitigated with maybe some practices that you guys have? Mickey Konson: Well, I think one of the risks that people often talk about in the AI space is, is there risk that a decision, a really important decision that is really integral to the success of a business gets made by a machine, a model or something like that, right? And so in our case, we use a lot of AI modeling techniques, but we're subject to a lot of the compliance regulations around lending. So if we decline a customer, we have to tell them why, and so our models are not black boxes. They can be interrogated, they have to give reasons for their decisions, and so we build them according to a set of protocols that makes the model itself be something that is rational and can provide good reasons. And again, we typically do work with banks and they have very high compliance burdens around that. And so we continue to abide by those safety guard rails around lending, and I think that's really important to do. I think the other piece though is really around, has our data environment created any kind of risks for customer data? I think from our perspective, we continue to hold ourselves to really high infosec regulations and controls, and so those sorts of things I think from our perspective haven't really increased in risk. I do think one of the risks that is out there is that even though we've had all of this innovation in data and underwriting and decisioning, the price of credit especially on the fintech side hasn't really come down for customers. And so most of the companies out there are really kind of taking the gains I think as profit but does not seem to have unleashed a sort of revolution of lower cost, moderately priced credit for the business owner. So I think that continues to be sort of, let's call it a lost opportunity in the space. Andy Karuza: I feel like a lot of companies probably think they need some sort of licensing or they have to be a financial institution to be able to do lending, why is that not necessarily the case in this scenario? Mickey Konson: So in the, if you're making consumer loans, it's typical for a consumer lender to make loans through some kind of national charter. National charters are effectively restricted to banks or to some kind of financial institution. When it comes to commercial loans and including small business loans, you can do it through a national charter either as a bank or you could rent a bank or get a sponsor. But in the small business space it is not as regulated, and so you can go state by state. Most states do not require licenses, so you really can do it on a state-by-state basis. It's a little more complicated but it's actually possible to do in this scenario, whereas it's very difficult to do it in the consumer space. So when it comes to a platform, the reality is as an infrastructure play on the lending side, we carry all of the compliance, right? So we have all of the licenses that we need, we have all of the compliance regulations. What we're really doing in partnering with a platform is really creating sort of an integration on the front end so the customer can access the product, they can get service through it, but all of the actual work is done on the back end via API into our platform. So we've had a couple of clients sometimes who actually want to take on that burden, but those typically are very large, very sophisticated clients that actually want to do servicing or something like that, they typically already have some kind of credit product. But for the most part, this is a pretty straightforward plug-and-play opportunity for platforms to provide a financial services product without actually having to take on any of the regulatory or compliance or financial burden of doing that. Andy Karuza: Great, so what would you say the typical partnership model looks like for you guys, you touched on some of that earlier, but let's say I'm a new customer or a new partner coming your way, what would that process look like to onboard and work with you? Mickey Konson: Yeah, so we have a vast spread of engagement models. So we can do anything as simple as just have a referral page, co-branded, we can set that up in six hours, right? And a platform can refer into that. It's not our typical model of working, but it is a very straightforward way to get set up really quickly and actually just to test the waters. And we'll go all the way through to the other side where a customer, if I described a scenario in a SaaS platform where a small business owner logs onto their SaaS platform, onto their dashboard to get a pre-qualified offer, they can click on the pre-qualified offer, the application is mostly pre-filled with all of their data, you're really operating in the SaaS platform's environment still. Once they decide what they want, they can click it, we'll actually have a decisioning run, all of this will be done via API, decision will be delivered back to the platform to the customer, sign docs effectively all obviously done through e-sign, and then the payment is made directly into the bank account of the business. Then on a monthly basis or weekly whenever they want to, they can log back into their SaaS platform, there'll be a part of that platform now that's available for servicing, either it's just static data, balances, things like that, or it could be as much as hey I want to make a draw, right? And so really that's the most integrated version of this. We also have private label versions where we host that in the name of the platform, and so we're very agnostic. We have a range of solutions built out, we have I think 200 partners and we've covered the full gamut of it. So all it really depends on is what's the particular use case and how much appetite does the platform have for integration, but most of the scenarios are covered by somebody in our network. Andy Karuza: Great. So I feel like a lot of the compliance regulatory and servicing aspect is handled on your side. What would you say for a company that might have some fear of embedding this product and then having to service it and having a bunch of work that has to go into it over time? It sounds like you guys kind of handle all that. Mickey Konson: Yeah, I don't recommend it. As somebody once said, don't try this at home. You know, I think we're all specialists in our own business, right? And so we're not trying to be a SaaS platform, we're not trying to sell software, we're trying to provide credit to businesses and to service it. And so we strongly recommend that platforms allow us to take on all the hard functions. But again, we've had a couple of large institutions say we want to take that on, we already have this built out. And so there, to the degree that a platform may have a different finance product or credit product or they have some servicing, we actually can support that. But typically that would only be for a client that has a product or a similar product already built out, could be on consumer or it could be a different financial product. For the most part, we basically can handle everything on behalf of them for their customer. Andy Karuza: Great. So how should founders really think or know that they have a potential opportunity to work with you guys here? What are some of the key signals that they might be missing out and might be able to leverage a platform like yours to be able to increase their customer retention, generate new revenue streams, and convert more customers by having these offerings? Mickey Konson: Yeah, I think typically when a platform comes to us to talk about providing a product, oftentimes it's because they notice that other competitors are providing it, right? And so they start to feel like, oh am I missing out, why is that company providing this product but I'm not providing it? And so that's often a signal for them that they should get in the game. I think the other piece is if they're looking to boost revenue, we've had platforms come to us and say, "We're in the IPO window, we need to try to find ways to boost revenue or we actually want to boost sales and we think having a way to kind of use credit to increase more sales." So usually it's some kind of strategic, competitive, or I think financial reason that leads them in our direction. And I think just for founders, the thing that I would say is, as you go looking for a provider, I've been a founder, founders often have a clear mission around how they built their product, and sometimes they will just plug in a product that frankly doesn't align with their mission from a product and a pricing perspective. And so I would really think about that, right? Which is, you've spent years of your life and capital and real personal capital building up a product that you believe in. Whatever you cross-sell, including a loan, is a reflection on you and your company as well. And so I would just think carefully about that, make sure that every partner aligns with your set of values and your vision for your product and your company. Andy Karuza: Yeah, good old FOMO gets people to do a lot of things, but I'd recommend people kind of get ahead of the curve here and don't be the one chasing or following, be a leader in your industry. So maybe think about these opportunities and get ahead of it before your competitors do, because then you'll be the company that everybody else is copying. Mickey Konson: Exactly, yeah. You know, and the reality is it's very straightforward to test, right? So I always like to try before I buy anything, and because we can set things up really, really quickly, it's actually pretty straightforward to test your market and just to see if this is something your customers are interested in and do you like the experience before you actually integrate. So there are ways of stepping your way into this to see if this is something that is of interest to your customer base. And so there's not a lot of downside from moving forward, there's very low capital outlay for building this up, the platform is effectively already built for you. Andy Karuza: Great, what does the typical process or timeline look like for a lot of companies from start to finish and get this up and rolling? Mickey Konson: Yeah, I would say for some very straightforward smaller clients where we just set up a product's application page, it literally is less than a week. I think if you're doing a real integration, it depends again on the integration. I think we've seen everything from one to three months from an integration perspective. Usually what we'll find is that when we sign with the platform, we're going to be slotted into some kind of release, right? Not necessarily a technical release because people don't have very long technical releases now, but could be a platform release or a product release or a PR release or there's something that we end up getting bundled into. But the timing is almost always driven by that rather than development time. Development time is a very small part of the build here, there's just not a very heavy lift from a build perspective anymore. Andy Karuza: Sounds pretty turnkey then. I guess what industries, if you want to be a leader for anybody listening, what industries do you feel like are underserved right now that might be able to take advantage of this? Mickey Konson: You know, I think the reality is outside of restaurants and e-commerce platforms, almost any industry is underserved. And so I would think that those are the ones where, so if you're a restaurant platform or an e-commerce platform, you are really far behind and so I would definitely move quickly there. And these are well-known examples of platforms that are among the biggest fintech lenders into that space, but almost every other industry that we find outside of those is really, really underpenetrated. And so really I don't think there's a particularly underserved industry, I think it's just that there's a well-served segment which is a small part of the SaaS platform market, and then there's everybody else that is wildly underserved. Andy Karuza: Great, so any last thoughts in terms of what people consider today to pick up Quantum Lending Solutions and what particular company should reach out right away and contact you guys to get started? Mickey Konson: Yeah, no, I mean I think I would say if you're in a space, you have a product or a platform that has a large small business franchise, either because it specifically serves a need for small businesses or it's just a product that has a very large adoption in the small business space, one of the top concerns of that customer base is going to be financing. And so even if they don't talk to you about that today because that's not the relationship you have, it is going to be one of their top needs. And so if you show up with a credible solution for them that is one that you can be proud of and stand behind, I think they're going to pay attention and I think they're going to have a deeper appreciation and sense of loyalty towards you. So I think it's just putting yourself into the shoes of your small business owners, your small business customers, and understanding that you can test your way in and be very thoughtful about stepping your way in. And then I'll just reiterate my final point which is you built your business with a set of values and a mission in mind and just make sure that whichever financial service provider you pick is reputationally accretive to you. That's really important I think in the startup space. Andy Karuza: Great, where can people learn about your solutions and how can they get a hold of you? Mickey Konson: Sure, you can find us at quantumlens.com and so that's our website. You can reach out to me, I'm Mickey Konson, Mickey@quantumlens.com, feel free to reach out directly and we'll get you set up with a demo and squared away. But yeah, we also have a lot of information on our website, also you can sign up there as well, and the website again is quantumlens.com. Andy Karuza: Great, appreciate you coming on today Mickey, great learning about your company and exciting to see what you guys are working on. Mickey Konson: Great, thank you Andy. Thank you, take care. Andy Karuza: Take care, perfect Andy Karuza: That's actually pretty interesting. So you're able to take data that maybe this platform has that exists already for the customer and use that to be able to qualify their customers for lending. A lot of other platforms, you know, just out of the box lending solutions don't really have that capability because they don't have that connection to the back end and data to be able to make that assessment on the customer. Mickey Konson: Yeah, I mean, you know, again the problem we're trying to solve is not just provide credit but provide it really efficiently. You know, we want to make it really easy for the business owner, and frankly, because we only work through platforms, we only work through clients, you know, we have to make this a surprise and delight moment for them. And so you don't want to decline them, you don't want to waste their time or engage in a long process, you wanted to make it really quick and seamless and easy for them. Andy Karuza: Yeah, and what do you see as some of the biggest problems in lending today? I feel like a lot of them rely on like old school methodologies like credit scores, that kind of thing. What other problems exist in the industry that you guys are looking to solve? Mickey Konson: Yeah, so I think, I mean you hit the nail on the head. I think there's a couple of threads of the problem. One is that it's very old school, right? So you have a lot of very traditional underwriting, it can rely on assets or do you have inventory or real estate or something like that, which again is not a very modern way, and it's not really where most small businesses exist today. And so that can work for bigger businesses, it just doesn't work for the majority of businesses. So on the one hand, there's a very traditional underwriting approach. For a lot of the smaller businesses, where providers have defaulted to is consumer underwriting, particularly in the credit card space. So again, that has its own shortcomings, and so that doesn't really give enough credit to the business owner. And then I think the other problem is really a very modern technology-oriented problem, but it's still a problem, which is that a lot of the newer fintech options available to business owners are very high cost and very short term. And so a lot of embedded lending today fits into sort of a merchant cash advance type framework where the loan is typically less than a year, could be six months, could be nine months, and APRs are typically, you know, mid to high double digits, so it could be 40, 50, you know, 60, 70 and upward percent on an APR basis, which may still help the business if they're trying to close an order, but it's not a very enduring solution for them. And so I think you're stuck between the sort of old traditional asset-based lending or modern fast but very high price, low utility credit. And so what we try to do here at Quantum Lending Solutions, and we're typically lending as I said through partners including banks, our way that we like to talk about ourselves is we offer lending products that your customers would actually recognize as a lending product. Like it would have a price they would recognize, it would have a structure they would recognize, it wouldn't be a very complex loan. And so we're really trying to fulfill the long-term enduring working capital need for most of the sort of small business market in the country. Andy Karuza: Yep, what are some of the ideal SaaS platforms that can work with you and what do some of those deals look like? Can you maybe give some examples of some use cases that you've seen that are pretty popular? Mickey Konson: Sure, sure. So I think, you know, I would just say that any part of the industry can work really well here. Parts of the industry are quite well penetrated in for this type of lending already, so restaurants for instance, right? So most restaurants obviously have a merchant platform, they usually have some kind of SaaS platform they're running their floor on or their booking system, and I think there's a lot of lending that happens through that. So the restaurant space is pretty well served right now. I think e-commerce as well, right? E-commerce is a space where it's less well served than the restaurant space, but e-commerce is a really good use case here because there's a couple reasons for this. One is for somebody who's actually working through an e-commerce platform, there's lots of data available. So the lender with a high probability can provide a really strong qualified offer to them because they know what their sales are, right? So you know what their inventory is, you know what their orders look like, so there's a lot of good sales data through there. And so e-commerce is a really good example of this. One more use case that actually works really well is we do work with some platforms where they have a very high-priced product. So this product could be 50 to 100k a year, it could be a really expensive product, and so in that case our loan can actually be used to finance the product, right? And so you're not just providing a general liquidity to the business owner, but you're actually helping the platform generate more sales because they're providing an easier way for themselves to get paid through that. So there's lots of use cases, almost any platform there will have their own unique business case, but I would say that the ones that work the best are where there's lots of data to make a pre-qualified offer, something in the sales space would be best, and where there's a product that can be financed, that tends to work the best. Andy Karuza: Yeah, and definitely probably some history to the customer as well too where you could see you know payments over time. Mickey Konson: Yep exactly. Yeah, I mean almost any data, any relationship with a customer can serve as some proxy for credit risk, right? And so obviously there's a hierarchy there, but any data can be used, and today it's very easy to build models and to incorporate that into a technology product. Andy Karuza: This is interesting. So will this potentially unlock new revenue stream opportunities for companies as well, not just, you know, helping support converting customers and helping enable purchases and all that, but what are some opportunities maybe for the platforms themselves to be able to generate more money? Mickey Konson: Yeah, no absolutely. I mean you've outlined well, there are organic opportunities that come from providing a product like this, but we typically enter into a cross-sell agreement with platforms, and so they actually make an additional revenue stream just like we do when a loan gets sold. And so we really construct it anyway, sometimes it depends on the platform, some platforms like to be paid points up front, some of them actually want to have more of a SaaS-like revenue stream over time so they can basically get paid over time as the loan gets paid down. It really doesn't matter to us, can be very flexible depending on what the goals of the platform are from a financial perspective. But typically it's not just about doing right by their customers, it's also about increasing the financial performance of the platform. Andy Karuza: Yeah, I also feel like there might be a lot of opportunities in retention and engagement with your existing customers. How could a solution like this maybe lead towards that, because it's not just about converting your customer, it's about keeping the customer over a longer period of time. Mickey Konson: Yeah, so credit products tend to be quite sticky for a couple reasons. So one is, you know, if you do a loan it's typically could be two, three, four years, it's a long period of time. We offer both a loan and a line of credit, and so a line of credit is even stickier because it has ongoing utility, right? So they could draw, pay it down, they could draw, they can continue to use it, it helps kind of through seasonality. And because we can completely private label our platform, right? So even though we're Quantum Lending Solutions and we're really proud of our brand and our name, we're very seldom on the front door, right? It's usually our client's name that's on the front door in a private label platform. And so when we offer a product, it can be in the name of the platform itself which I think creates sort of an enduringly sticky relationship with the customer when they have both a financial product as well as a platform product like a SaaS product. Andy Karuza: Great. So I know AI's really transformed a lot of industries, how do you see it transforming your industry and lending going forward? Mickey Konson: Yeah, so I think you know for us, when it comes to the way that we engage with customers, the two biggest problems there have typically been around product engagement and data and decisioning, right? And so product engagement is typically around having to fill out a form, a really long form. We move those forms online, and now those can all be pre-filled, you pull data from multiple platforms, and so effectively the product side of AI has made that incredibly efficient now. And so that's an important part of it. I think the biggest leverage point has been around data processing, the ability to make decisions really quickly. And so as a fintech we've always tried to be as digital as we can from a decisioning perspective. Digital isn't always instant, right? Those are different things. And so now the digital funnel can suck up a lot more data, a lot more data is available, and you can build the ability to go and find that data and then you can decision it much, much more quickly now. The processing power, the models that you can build, your ability to deploy models incredibly quickly and to update them weekly, daily even if you need to, is much greater than it used to be. And so what that's done for us I think has given us the ability to just process these requests much more quickly, much more efficiently. Andy Karuza: Great, so what would you say about the naysayers on AI, a lot of people are worried about risk management, is there any risk associated with it, or is that pretty much mitigated with maybe some practices that you guys have? Mickey Konson: Well, I think one of the risks that people often talk about in the AI space is, is there risk that a decision, a really important decision that is really integral to the success of a business gets made by a machine, a model or something like that, right? And so in our case, we use a lot of AI modeling techniques, but we're subject to a lot of the compliance regulations around lending. So if we decline a customer, we have to tell them why, and so our models are not black boxes. They can be interrogated, they have to give reasons for their decisions, and so we build them according to a set of protocols that makes the model itself be something that is rational and can provide good reasons. And again, we typically do work with banks and they have very high compliance burdens around that. And so we continue to abide by those safety guard rails around lending, and I think that's really important to do. I think the other piece though is really around, has our data environment created any kind of risks for customer data? I think from our perspective, we continue to hold ourselves to really high infosec regulations and controls, and so those sorts of things I think from our perspective haven't really increased in risk. I do think one of the risks that is out there is that even though we've had all of this innovation in data and underwriting and decisioning, the price of credit especially on the fintech side hasn't really come down for customers. And so most of the companies out there are really kind of taking the gains I think as profit but does not seem to have unleashed a sort of revolution of lower cost, moderately priced credit for the business owner. So I think that continues to be sort of, let's call it a lost opportunity in the space. Andy Karuza: I feel like a lot of companies probably think they need some sort of licensing or they have to be a financial institution to be able to do lending, why is that not necessarily the case in this scenario? Mickey Konson: So in the, if you're making consumer loans, it's typical for a consumer lender to make loans through some kind of national charter. National charters are effectively restricted to banks or to some kind of financial institution. When it comes to commercial loans and including small business loans, you can do it through a national charter either as a bank or you could rent a bank or get a sponsor. But in the small business space it is not as regulated, and so you can go state by state. Most states do not require licenses, so you really can do it on a state-by-state basis. It's a little more complicated but it's actually possible to do in this scenario, whereas it's very difficult to do it in the consumer space. So when it comes to a platform, the reality is as an infrastructure play on the lending side, we carry all of the compliance, right? So we have all of the licenses that we need, we have all of the compliance regulations. What we're really doing in partnering with a platform is really creating sort of an integration on the front end so the customer can access the product, they can get service through it, but all of the actual work is done on the back end via API into our platform. So we've had a couple of clients sometimes who actually want to take on that burden, but those typically are very large, very sophisticated clients that actually want to do servicing or something like that, they typically already have some kind of credit product. But for the most part, this is a pretty straightforward plug-and-play opportunity for platforms to provide a financial services product without actually having to take on any of the regulatory or compliance or financial burden of doing that. Andy Karuza: Great, so what would you say the typical partnership model looks like for you guys, you touched on some of that earlier, but let's say I'm a new customer or a new partner coming your way, what would that process look like to onboard and work with you? Mickey Konson: Yeah, so we have a vast spread of engagement models. So we can do anything as simple as just have a referral page, co-branded, we can set that up in six hours, right? And a platform can refer into that. It's not our typical model of working, but it is a very straightforward way to get set up really quickly and actually just to test the waters. And we'll go all the way through to the other side where a customer, if I described a scenario in a SaaS platform where a small business owner logs onto their SaaS platform, onto their dashboard to get a pre-qualified offer, they can click on the pre-qualified offer, the application is mostly pre-filled with all of their data, you're really operating in the SaaS platform's environment still. Once they decide what they want, they can click it, we'll actually have a decisioning run, all of this will be done via API, decision will be delivered back to the platform to the customer, sign docs effectively all obviously done through e-sign, and then the payment is made directly into the bank account of the business. Then on a monthly basis or weekly whenever they want to, they can log back into their SaaS platform, there'll be a part of that platform now that's available for servicing, either it's just static data, balances, things like that, or it could be as much as hey I want to make a draw, right? And so really that's the most integrated version of this. We also have private label versions where we host that in the name of the platform, and so we're very agnostic. We have a range of solutions built out, we have I think 200 partners and we've covered the full gamut of it. So all it really depends on is what's the particular use case and how much appetite does the platform have for integration, but most of the scenarios are covered by somebody in our network. Andy Karuza: Great. So I feel like a lot of the compliance regulatory and servicing aspect is handled on your side. What would you say for a company that might have some fear of embedding this product and then having to service it and having a bunch of work that has to go into it over time? It sounds like you guys kind of handle all that. Mickey Konson: Yeah, I don't recommend it. As somebody once said, don't try this at home. You know, I think we're all specialists in our own business, right? And so we're not trying to be a SaaS platform, we're not trying to sell software, we're trying to provide credit to businesses and to service it. And so we strongly recommend that platforms allow us to take on all the hard functions. But again, we've had a couple of large institutions say we want to take that on, we already have this built out. And so there, to the degree that a platform may have a different finance product or credit product or they have some servicing, we actually can support that. But typically that would only be for a client that has a product or a similar product already built out, could be on consumer or it could be a different financial product. For the most part, we basically can handle everything on behalf of them for their customer. Andy Karuza: Great. So how should founders really think or know that they have a potential opportunity to work with you guys here? What are some of the key signals that they might be missing out and might be able to leverage a platform like yours to be able to increase their customer retention, generate new revenue streams, and convert more customers by having these offerings? Mickey Konson: Yeah, I think typically when a platform comes to us to talk about providing a product, oftentimes it's because they notice that other competitors are providing it, right? And so they start to feel like, oh am I missing out, why is that company providing this product but I'm not providing it? And so that's often a signal for them that they should get in the game. I think the other piece is if they're looking to boost revenue, we've had platforms come to us and say, "We're in the IPO window, we need to try to find ways to boost revenue or we actually want to boost sales and we think having a way to kind of use credit to increase more sales." So usually it's some kind of strategic, competitive, or I think financial reason that leads them in our direction. And I think just for founders, the thing that I would say is, as you go looking for a provider, I've been a founder, founders often have a clear mission around how they built their product, and sometimes they will just plug in a product that frankly doesn't align with their mission from a product and a pricing perspective. And so I would really think about that, right? Which is, you've spent years of your life and capital and real personal capital building up a product that you believe in. Whatever you cross-sell, including a loan, is a reflection on you and your company as well. And so I would just think carefully about that, make sure that every partner aligns with your set of values and your vision for your product and your company. Andy Karuza: Yeah, good old FOMO gets people to do a lot of things, but I'd recommend people kind of get ahead of the curve here and don't be the one chasing or following, be a leader in your industry. So maybe think about these opportunities and get ahead of it before your competitors do, because then you'll be the company that everybody else is copying. Mickey Konson: Exactly, yeah. You know, and the reality is it's very straightforward to test, right? So I always like to try before I buy anything, and because we can set things up really, really quickly, it's actually pretty straightforward to test your market and just to see if this is something your customers are interested in and do you like the experience before you actually integrate. So there are ways of stepping your way into this to see if this is something that is of interest to your customer base. And so there's not a lot of downside from moving forward, there's very low capital outlay for building this up, the platform is effectively already built for you. Andy Karuza: Great, what does the typical process or timeline look like for a lot of companies from start to finish and get this up and rolling? Mickey Konson: Yeah, I would say for some very straightforward smaller clients where we just set up a product's application page, it literally is less than a week. I think if you're doing a real integration, it depends again on the integration. I think we've seen everything from one to three months from an integration perspective. Usually what we'll find is that when we sign with the platform, we're going to be slotted into some kind of release, right? Not necessarily a technical release because people don't have very long technical releases now, but could be a platform release or a product release or a PR release or there's something that we end up getting bundled into. But the timing is almost always driven by that rather than development time. Development time is a very small part of the build here, there's just not a very heavy lift from a build perspective anymore. Andy Karuza: Sounds pretty turnkey then. I guess what industries, if you want to be a leader for anybody listening, what industries do you feel like are underserved right now that might be able to take advantage of this? Mickey Konson: You know, I think the reality is outside of restaurants and e-commerce platforms, almost any industry is underserved. And so I would think that those are the ones where, so if you're a restaurant platform or an e-commerce platform, you are really far behind and so I would definitely move quickly there. And these are well-known examples of platforms that are among the biggest fintech lenders into that space, but almost every other industry that we find outside of those is really, really underpenetrated. And so really I don't think there's a particularly underserved industry, I think it's just that there's a well-served segment which is a small part of the SaaS platform market, and then there's everybody else that is wildly underserved. Andy Karuza: Great, so any last thoughts in terms of what people consider today to pick up Quantum Lending Solutions and what particular company should reach out right away and contact you guys to get started? Mickey Konson: Yeah, no, I mean I think I would say if you're in a space, you have a product or a platform that has a large small business franchise, either because it specifically serves a need for small businesses or it's just a product that has a very large adoption in the small business space, one of the top concerns of that customer base is going to be financing. And so even if they don't talk to you about that today because that's not the relationship you have, it is going to be one of their top needs. And so if you show up with a credible solution for them that is one that you can be proud of and stand behind, I think they're going to pay attention and I think they're going to have a deeper appreciation and sense of loyalty towards you. So I think it's just putting yourself into the shoes of your small business owners, your small business customers, and understanding that you can test your way in and be very thoughtful about stepping your way in. And then I'll just reiterate my final point which is you built your business with a set of values and a mission in mind and just make sure that whichever financial service provider you pick is reputationally accretive to you. That's really important I think in the startup space. Andy Karuza: Great, where can people learn about your solutions and how can they get a hold of you? Mickey Konson: Sure, you can find us at quantumlens.com and so that's our website. You can reach out to me, I'm Mickey Konson, Mickey@quantumlens.com, feel free to reach out directly and we'll get you set up with a demo and squared away. But yeah, we also have a lot of information on our website, also you can sign up there as well, and the website again is quantumlens.com. Andy Karuza: Great, appreciate you coming on today Mickey, great learning about your company and exciting to see what you guys are working on. Mickey Konson: Great, thank you Andy. Thank you, take care. Andy Karuza: Take care, perfect.

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