Pagaya Technologies
Pagaya Technologies is an Israeli-American financial technology company based in New York City. The company evaluates loan applications using artificial intelligence with the aim of modernizing credit checks. The company has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2022. According to its own figures, Pagaya had assessed loan applications with a volume of around US$2.6 trillion and brokered a cumulative loan volume of around US$28 billion by 2024. Its customers are mainly banks and other financial service providers.
History
Pagaya Technologies was founded in Israel in 2016. The company was founded by Gal Krubiner, Avital Pardo, and Yahav Yulzari with the aim of using AI and machine learning in lending to replace traditional credit checks. Initially, the company acted as an asset manager for institutional clients and, at the same time, developed a data-driven credit model. With the help of private funds and asset-backed securities, consumer loans were financed at an early stage; by 2020, Pagaya managed assets of more than US$1.6 billion for banks and other institutions and had issued over US$1 billion in ABS. Among the investors in the company was Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC.In September 2021, Pagaya announced a merger with the US acquisition company EJF Acquisition Corp. The SPAC transaction valued Pagaya at approximately US$8.5 billion and enabled the fintech company to go public in June 2022. During the listing process, development and administrative activities were divided between Tel Aviv and New York, and the number of employees grew to almost 1,000 by 2022.
In July 2024, Pagaya agreed to acquire US fund manager Theorem Technology, which uses machine learning for credit funds. The acquisition was completed in October 2024 and increased Pagaya's assets under management to over US$3 billion, diversifying the company's funding and providing investors with access to the credit receivables generated through the Pagaya platform. In January 2024, management also announced that it would relocate its headquarters to New York, as the majority of its partners and sales are based in the US; however, the technical development site in Tel Aviv remained unchanged.
At the 2025 Mind the Tech conference in New York, CEO Gal Krubiner presented his vision of the platform serving all major US banks, with the company seeing itself as a bridge between Israeli technology culture and the US financial market.
Business model
Pagaya sees itself as a B2B platform that connects banks, lenders, and institutional investors. Its core product is an AI-powered decision-making platform that evaluates loan applications using big data sets and machine learning algorithms. This platform is embedded in the partners' processes via application programming interfaces : if a banking partner rejects an application, the anonymized data is forwarded to Pagaya. The models check creditworthiness, submit their own offer, and Pagaya assumes the credit default risk; the bank retains the customer relationship and receives servicing fees. Financing is provided through forward flow agreements, the issuance of ABS, and proprietary credit funds. For example, an agreement signed in 2024 with asset manager Castlelake enables the purchase of up to US$1 billion in consumer loans, thereby broadening refinancing options.The platform aims to provide a “second chance” in credit granting and is designed to increase the approval rate of its partners. According to the company, the database includes applications worth several trillion US dollars, which means that non-traditional creditworthiness indicators can also be used. Pagaya's network is active in various credit segments, including unsecured consumer loans, car loans, credit cards, “buy now, pay later” models in retail, and real estate financing; in the long term, the company also wants to be present in the mortgage and insurance sectors. Partners include Prosper, LendingClub, SoFi, U.S. Bank, Ally, Klarna, Visa, and major auto lenders. In its business model, Pagaya focuses on fee income from brokerage and servicing, while the credit risk is largely passed on to institutional investors. The company was accused of hiding losses with investors' money.