NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Most lenders spent the last decade tweaking rates. ByzFunder rebuilt the engine. While the small-business lending industry debated incremental changes — a faster portal here, a new rate sheet there — ByzFunder made a different bet: if the system is broken, don’t optimize it. Replace it.
In 2025, ByzFunder stopped operating like a traditional lender and started operating like a technology company that happens to move capital. Our new approach is opening new doors for small businesses, which in turn is driving tremendous growth for ByzFunder.
ByzFunder today announced 40% year-over-year growth, record originations, higher approvals with improving portfolio performance, and reduced customer friction across the funding journey. The company also reported a 30% increase in customer portal engagement, reflecting stronger customer loyalty and repeat business — driven by increased adoption of self-serve tools, faster visibility into funding progress, and a cleaner end-to-end experience that reduces unnecessary handoffs.
“Most of the industry is still running on static rules and patched-together systems,” said Ilya Fridman, CEO & Founder of ByzFunder. “We built a modern credit engine designed to learn every day. We didn’t aim to be slightly better — we built ByzFunder to be structurally different.”
Byz.AI: From Underwriting Feature to Decision Brain
In 2025, ByzFunder advanced its AI foundation with Byz.AI — not as a feature, but as the decision brain behind underwriting and pricing. Byz.AI evaluates real-time business signals (cash flow patterns, revenue trends, banking behavior, and industry cycles) to deliver faster decisions and more accurate risk-based pricing than static scorecards. And because it continuously learns from outcomes — repayments, defaults, and merchant behavior — it improves as volume scales. When Byz.AI went live, it widened what we could confidently approve: businesses competitors couldn’t underwrite became some of ByzFunder’s strongest-performing customers, helping drive growth without compromising discipline.
ByzFlex: The Product that Changed Repeat Behavior
A defining driver of 2025 growth was ByzFlex, which now accounts for 20% of total originations, making it one of the fastest-adopted products in ByzFunder’s history. ByzFlex gives your business ongoing access to working capital — acting like a business line of credit, but structured as a revenue-based financing. Funding that resets itself as you repay. ByzFlex was built for how small businesses actually operate: not as a one-time advance, but as a repeatable capital layer that can be accessed as needs change — with flexible draws and capital that moves when they move.
Customer Service — And We Mean Real Customer Service
ByzFunder also continued investing in service as a competitive advantage. In an industry known for tickets, hold times, and scripts, ByzFunder’s approach combines real human support with intelligent automation to create a more responsive, partner-like experience. When a merchant calls ByzFunder, they get answers — not a queue. In a commoditized market, experience becomes the moat.
“In SMB funding, service is often treated as a cost center,” Fridman added. “We treat it as a growth lever. When merchants trust the experience, they come back — and they refer.”
Leadership Built for Scale
In 2025, ByzFunder strengthened its operating bench — not by hiring “managers,” but by hiring builders. Entrepreneurs. Operators. People who have scaled companies, not maintained them. New leadership was added across the CMO, CRO, CISO, Head of People, and Head of Sales functions as ByzFunder scales its platform, expands distribution, and builds a team designed to shock the industry.
2026: The Real Leap
Most lenders buy software. ByzFunder is building its own from scratch. In 2026, ByzFunder plans to launch a fully proprietary, end-to-end AI Lending Management System spanning intake, underwriting, pricing, funding, servicing, and collections — with every step learning, every step automated, and every step improving itself. No handoffs. No legacy vendors. No duct tape. Just one intelligent system: a closed-loop credit engine designed to get smarter every day. This isn’t digital transformation — it’s infrastructure replacement.
“SMB lending has been stagnant for years. Same products. Same underwriting. Same excuses,” said Fridman. “That gap created opportunity. We didn’t want to be slightly better — we wanted to be structurally different. The world is evolving faster than most people realize. The lenders who build for tomorrow will own the next decade. We’re not early anymore. We’re accelerating.”
About ByzFunder
ByzFunder is an AI-driven small business funder delivering fast, flexible capital to entrepreneurs underserved by traditional finance. Founded in 2019, the company combines machine learning, proprietary infrastructure, and a service-first philosophy to create a fundamentally better funding experience.
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SOURCE ByzFunder
