20-05-2025
- Business
- New Indian Express
FROM BENGALURU TO THE BOARDROOM
At just 20, Arnav Jha isn't waiting to graduate to make an impact—he's already shaking up one of America's most outdated financial systems. As the co-founder and CEO of Loandock, a fast-rising AI startup, the boy from Bengaluru, who is a computer science student at Georgia Tech, is reimagining how Americans secure home loans.
The U.S. mortgage process, notorious for its complexity and cost, hasn't evolved much in decades. A typical mortgage takes 30 days to close, costs around $9,000, and involves a maze of intermediaries. Jha saw an opportunity—and instead of building from afar, he moved to Miami, one of America's hottest housing markets, to watch the process up close.
'I didn't want to write code from a distance,' says Jha. 'I wanted to sit next to loan officers, see what slows them down, and build tools that actually solve their pain points.'
What he witnessed was a system tangled in spreadsheets, emails, and hours of manual work. Loandock's answer? The first AI-powered mortgage loan officer—a platform that handles everything from document collection to underwriting, helping lenders close loans faster and cheaper.
Since its launch, Loandock has processed over $600 million in loan volume, signed multi-year deals with lenders, and introduced a voice assistant trained on hundreds of real customer conversations. The company's software doesn't aim to replace humans—but to supercharge their output. 'One loan officer should be able to handle ten times the volume with AI,' Jha explains. 'That's how you lower costs and pass real savings to buyers.'
The startup has already raised $350,000 at a $4.5 million valuation, with backing from Y Combinator alumni, Antler NYC, and Georgia Tech's own venture fund. Jha's co-founder, Ethan Gutierrez, even turned down an Amazon offer to build Loandock full-time—proof of their belief in the mission.
Jha, a Delhi Public School alumnus, is unfazed by the pressures of leading a high-stakes fintech venture at 20. 'The age isn't the hard part,' he says. 'The hard part is staying focused when things get noisy. At the end of the day, all that matters is—does it work?'
With plans to roll out Loandock's AI voice assistant across the U.S. this year, Jha's ambition is clear: automate 80% of the mortgage pipeline and save homebuyers tens of thousands of dollars on every purchase.
If he pulls it off, Jha won't just be a young founder to watch—he'll be a Bangalorean who rewrote the rulebook for American finance.
