The source provides an overview of the fintech startup Salient, detailing its recent **$60 million Series A funding** led by A16Z and its primary function as an **AI loan servicing platform** for consumer lenders, including major banks and non-bank entities. The company's origin traces back to the founder's time at Tesla, where the high cost of loan matching sparked the idea to **automate processes using AI**, initially leveraging closed-source models like GPT-3.5 and later **scaling significantly with open-source models** like Llama 2. Salient's rapid growth was driven by relentlessly **customer-focused execution**, including physically moving near a major customer, Westlake Financial, to ensure success, which helped them surpass **$1 billion in processed transactions** and interact with over three million borrowers. The discussion also covers Salient’s commitment to **regulatory compliance** in the heavily regulated lending industry and its ambitious future goal to become the **system of record for every loan in America**, ultimately aiming to lower the cost of credit for consumers.
