Pagaya

Pagaya Technologies was founded in 2016 by Gal Krubiner, Yahav Yulzari, and Avital Pardo. Headquartered dually in Tel Aviv and New York, the company went public on the NASDAQ via a SPAC merger with EJF Acquisition Corp in June 2022, trading under the ticker PGY. To regain compliance with NASDAQ minimum bid price rules following a post-SPAC decline, Pagaya executed a 1-for-12 reverse stock split in March 2024. The company employs roughly 600-800 people, with the technical and data science operations based in Israel and commercial operations in the US. Pagaya operates an AI-driven credit assessment network that evaluates loan applications for partner banks and lenders. In late 2023, the company acquired Theorem Technology, a consumer credit fund manager.

The company's primary product is a B2B artificial intelligence network that connects lenders with institutional investors. Pagaya evaluates consumer credit risk using machine learning models that analyze macroeconomic factors and hundreds of data points, bypassing traditional FICO score limitations. The platform is utilized by banks, auto lenders, and point-of-sale financing providers, such as Ally Financial, SoFi, and Klarna. The business model is two-sided: Pagaya charges fees to lenders for originating loans via its API, and then packages these originated loans into Asset-Backed Securities (ABS), which it sells to institutional investors. The technical moat relies on its massive proprietary dataset and predictive algorithms used for high-frequency, automated underwriting.

The flagship offering is the Pagaya AI Credit Network, an API-based system that integrates directly into the loan origination systems of partner institutions. When a consumer applies for a personal loan, auto loan, or credit card, the partner institution runs the application through Pagaya's model in real-time. If approved, Pagaya assumes the financial risk and capitalizes the loan through its institutional funding vehicles. The company is consistently ranked as one of the largest issuers of personal loan ABS in the US market. The product operates entirely in the background as a white-labeled service; there is no direct-to-consumer application.

Pagaya competes primarily with Upstart, another publicly traded fintech company that provides AI-based lending models to banks. Unlike Upstart, which historically relied heavily on third-party funding or holding loans on its own balance sheet, Pagaya's distinct structure is deeply tied to its constant issuance of ABS to institutional buyers. The company's trajectory and financial performance are highly sensitive to macroeconomic headwinds; rising interest rates in 2022 and 2023 increased the cost of capital and pressured loan volumes, which severely impacted Pagaya's stock valuation.

Pagaya's Israeli headquarters is located in the Azrieli Sarona tower in Tel Aviv. This office houses the vast majority of the company's research and development, data science, and machine learning teams. Out of a global headcount of approximately 600-800, several hundred employees are based in Tel Aviv. The three co-founders are Israeli. Hiring in Israel focuses heavily on backend engineers (primarily Python), machine learning researchers, and data scientists to maintain and scale the core underwriting algorithms. The company conducted layoffs in early 2023, reducing its global workforce by roughly 20%, which included cuts in the Tel Aviv R&D center, and executed smaller workforce reductions in early 2024.