Repeat founder Ryan Williams raises $10M seed for an AI startup for private credit managers

“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.

For example, Williams promises the agents can help close a fund’s books at the end of the month.

“A team may have to download files from several systems, reformat the data, compare balances, investigate discrepancies, and re-enter information by hand. In many firms, Excel becomes the operating system,” he continued. “Ellis connects to the systems and documents a firm already uses rather than forcing it to rip everything out and start over.”

It keeps a human in the loop, too, he says. “Material decisions and actions remain with the human experts,” he said.

“I expect the human loop to become narrower, but not disappear,” he continued, when asked if he sees a day when the AI works fully autonomously. “Our goal is not to replace human judgment; it’s to help people cut through the noise and make educated decisions faster.”