AI mortgage broker Ralo launches, raises $2.9M seed round

Ralo, an AI-native mortgage broker founded by two former Google employees, has raised a $2.9 million seed round to expand its automated home loan platform, which the company says delivers interest rates below the national average and closes loans in roughly half the industry’s typical timeline.

Co-founders Arjun Lalwani and Helly Shah, who met while working at Google, position Ralo as the “first AI-native mortgage broker,” meaning the mortgage process, from initial rate shopping to post-closing, is handled primarily by an AI loan officer rather than a human one. 

Ralo, which is a portmanteau of the words “rates” and “low,” uses artificial intelligence to help consumers compare mortgage options, obtain preapprovals and navigate the loan process. 

“We started Ralo because we were homebuyers ourselves. Arjun bought a condo in San Francisco, I bought a condo in New York, and we went through the mortgage process. And as two Googlers … it was absolutely jarring how archaic the mortgage process is for consumers,” Shah said in an interview with HousingWire ahead of the launch.

Shah and Lalwani became licensed loan officers and built Ralo over the span of one year. As a licensed broker, the company is onboarded to lender platforms and uses its engine to surface the lowest rate available for a borrower’s scenario on a given day. Ralo’s technology aggregates and synthesizes price sheets from multiple wholesale lenders. 

“Helly and I took the hard path of getting licensed as loan officers ourselves … because if you’re building tech for this industry and for customers, we need to understand both sides,” Lalwani sai.

The founders, who are the sole employees of the company, did not disclose which lenders they are currently working with. 

New York-headquartered Ralo said it closed its first loans in March and is currently licensed in California, Colorado and Texas. The company did not disclose how many loans it has done, but it currently reports that customers are seeing an average savings of 0.6 percentage points relative to the national benchmark, with some cases reaching 1 full percentage point. 

“We use AI to shop for deals, eliminate a lot of the intermediaries, and reduce processing costs for end consumers, and that usually means that customers get rates that are more than half a point below the national average,” Lalwani said.

He added that Ralo is “hovering” at an average of 15 to 17 days to closing.

Shah said that the entire process is automated using AI and that customers can go to Ralo, answer a few questions without having to provide their email or phone number, and see what the best deal is available for them on that day. “That is automated with AI,” she said. 

Shah said that if a customer chooses to proceed, Ralo’s AI loan officer guides them through the entire process, but she and Lalwani are on standby if human help is wanted. 

The funding round included backing from investors like Y Combinator, Manresa Ventures and Pack Ventures, along with angel investors Charles Ferguson, the director of the documentary “Inside Job,” and Ryan Frazier, co-founder and CEO of Arrived.

The founders were part of startup accelerator Y Combinator’s spring 2025 cohort. Shah and Lalwani confirmed that the seed funding will be used in three main areas: product and engineering enhancements; sales and marketing to build brand awareness; and licensing expansion beyond the handful of states where Ralo is currently approved to operate.