Ellis AI announced Thursday its emergence from stealth with $10 million in seed funding from investors including First Round Capital, 645 Ventures, Harlem Capital, Khosla Ventures, Thrive Capital, Slow Capital, and Ariel Alternatives CEO Mellody Hobson.
Ellis uses AI agents to tackle the fragmented workflow private credit managers deal with, including managing documents, spreadsheets, and correspondence. The company was founded by Ryan Williams, best known for co-creating the real estate investment platform Cadre alongside Josh and Jared Kushner back in 2014. That company raised more than $160 million in funding and, at its peak, was valued at $800 million before being sold for an undisclosed sum to the alternative investment company Yieldstreet in 2024.
“At Cadre, I saw the next major constraint,” Williams said. “Even as the front end of private markets became more modern and accessible, the operating infrastructure underneath it remained fragmented.”
He started working on Ellis last year. The company seeks to connect and centralize all the scattered software, accounting information, and documents a private credit firm would use into one easily accessible platform. The system can flag discrepancies in the data and uses AI agents to help perform tasks like portfolio monitoring and preparing reports.
