Scrunch AI, the company helping brands understand and improve how they appear in AI search, announced a $15 million Series A funding round led by Decibel, with participation from Mayfield, Homebrew, and other strategic investors. The company is powering the shift from traditional SEO to AI search optimization. In addition to its enterprise-grade solutions, Scrunch has also launched a dedicated offering for agencies, designed to help them guide their clients through the transition to AI search. This program provides tailored access, insights, and tools specifically built for managing multiple brands and implementing at scale. The newly raised capital will accelerate the development and deployment of the Scrunch Agent Experience Platform (AXP), a new infrastructure layer that helps brands serve optimized content directly to AI crawlers and agents. Traditional websites designed for human browsers are often inefficient and ineffective for AI. AXP enables brands to maintain their existing websites for users while delivering compressed, structured, and machine-readable content specifically for AI engines, thereby improving discoverability and placement without requiring a redesign. AXP is currently in pilot with enterprise customers and will be rolled out more broadly in the months ahead.
ICE to expand its origination platform cum servicing solutions to enable lenders through a multi-channel toolset using servicing portfolio data while giving borrowers direct access to their loan information and self-service capability
ICE is rewriting the playbook on how lenders engage with customers across the homeownership journey. Matt Dowd, VP of Product Management at ICE, says the company’s strategy unifies its origination and servicing solutions, allowing lenders to more easily identify, engage and convert opportunities within their existing portfolios to drive business growth. This integrated approach creates a consistent borrower experience and allows lenders to maximize every interaction, from initial acquisition to long-term retention. “We have expanded our capabilities to provide a multi-channel toolset that loan officers can use to help identify, attract and convert new loan opportunities into closed loans. We’ve been laser-focused in this area for quite some time now — helping clients leverage both property and market data with technology to acquire NEW customers. Now we’re expanding our efforts to help lenders RETAIN customers and nurture those relationships using their servicing portfolio data. With flexible configuration options, lenders can tailor borrower-facing solutions to meet evolving customer expectations. Our platform allows customization of the experience — from flow and design to look and feel — ensuring that every interaction aligns with the lender’s brand and the borrower’s needs. One key use case is allowing loans to seamlessly transition from the Encompass origination system to the MSP servicing system. This integration is critical to our product strategy, which aims to create the most efficient network — giving lenders the ability to better manage volumes at scale and cost-effectively. In addition, we’ve streamlined several back-office processes, like loan boarding and lien release. Our ongoing focus is to bridge the gap between origination and servicing and unifying these two industry-leading platforms to deliver a more cohesive and efficient experience. Let’s take recapture as a use case: Mobile-enabled sales toolkit: Our sales toolkit allows loan officers to manage leads and pipelines efficiently. It’s integrated with the Encompass platform and the borrower point of sale and includes a native CRM to drive connectivity and boost conversion. Data and intelligence: We offer the industry’s broadest set of property and market data, valuation models, indices and business intelligence — helping lenders identify trends and act on market opportunities faster. Consumer-facing tools: Our servicing digital portal supports over 18 million consumers, giving borrowers direct access to their loan information and self-service capabilities. Machine learning at point of sale: We’re exploring ways to embed our current ML capabilities into our point of sale to streamline processes and improve the borrower experience. This includes immediately recognizing and validating any uploaded documents from the borrower and extracting relevant data from Encompass to pre-populate forms for review and correction. We anticipate that borrowers will continue to demand more transparency, control and self-service options. The more information you can provide up front — not just regarding their loan, but regarding the steps they can take to accelerate the process — the better their experience.
Algebrik AI’s integration of Open Lending’s auto loan decisioning capabilities within its LOS to enable credit unions to evaluate near- and non-prime applicants, receive real-time decisions and automatically surface stipulations tied to counter-offers
Algebrik AI announced an integration with Open Lending Corporation, an industry trailblazer in automotive lending enablement and risk analytics solutions for financial institutions. This collaboration aims to strengthen auto loan decisioning capabilities within Algebrik’s cloud-native, AI-powered LOS—part of the Algebrik One lending suite—enabling credit unions and community lenders to confidently extend credit to near- and non-prime borrowers while minimizing risk and streamlining workflows. Open Lending’s Lenders Protection™ platform empowers financial institutions to safely approve near- and non-prime auto loans by combining real-time risk modeling, pricing optimization, and insurance-backed loan protection. Through this partnership, Algebrik’s Loan Origination System, part of Algebrik One, Algebrik’s agentic AI-powered lending suite, now offers built-in access to the Lenders Protection™ platform, allowing credit unions to: Evaluate near- and non-prime applicants using Open Lending’s advanced decisioning engine; Receive real-time decisions (approved, counteroffer, or denied), including APR, terms, stipulations, and certificate numbers; Automatically surface stipulations tied to counter-offers (e.g., vehicle details, income verification) within the lending workflow of Algebrik’s Loan Origination System; Leverage Open Lending’s insured, risk-based decisioning directly within Algebrik’s LOS- no external systems needed.
esbconnect Optivo enables brands to retarget anonymous website visitors not on their CRM system with an email
Customer acquisition specialist, esbconnect, has launched Optivo, its new audience retargeting tool, Optivo. In a UK first, Optivo enables brands to retarget anonymous website visitors not on their CRM system with an email. Retargeting website visitors via email has long been proven to be effective. Using esbconnect’s GDPR-compliant database of 17 million opted-in UK email addresses, Optivo can match up to 20% of unknown visitors to real email records that are not in a brand’s CRM. Within minutes of a visit, matched users are enrolled into a compliant email journey, offering them a chance to subscribe and later to purchase. For those that choose to subscribe, they are immediately added into the brand’s CRM to nurture towards a conversion. esbconnect has already seen that between 40-70% of people who enter into this process convert to a subscriber, and the ROI is typically 2.6 times higher than a straight, purchase-led campaign. esbconnect estimates that Optivo will be able to match 20% of anonymous site visitors to an email address, much more efficiently and cost-effectively than retargeting ads on Meta or Google. This is the first GDPR-compliant service to launch in the UK. It enables brands to potentially retarget anyone who visits their site via email, not just the 10% of visitors who typically add to a cart, whether they complete the purchase or not. Email is extremely effective for retargeting, delivering the best ROI of any channel, according to the DMA. It typically delivers read rates in excess of 40% and an ROI of 4x, with some retail pilot test partners reporting 2.2x this figure.
Emerging agentic AI tools enable fully autonomous e-commerce; alongside TikTok’s influencer power, these technologies reshape customer engagement and accelerate retail growth.
The dominant subjects at the recent eTail Boston e-commerce and omnichannel retail conference were the rapid emergence of agentic AI and TikTok as digital retail tools. One area where agentic AI is taking hold is personalization. Erica Randerson, chief digital officer of Edible Brands and GM of Edible.com, said that agentic AI enables her company to serve relevant content by understanding customer intent and making recommendations based on it. Feliz Papich, senior VP of digital technology, experience & insights at Crocs Inc., said agentic AI is enabling Crocs to read customers in the moment and ensure the dynamic relevancy of recommended products. She added that acquisition costs of agentic AI technology is down and retailers can use “lightweight tools” for enhanced personalization. Agentic AI is also streamlining the resolution of customer complaints via automated chatbot. Steven Yang, GM, North America of VOC Inc., said that agentic AI resolution engines offer autonomous decision-making with contextual understanding, enabling the execution of complete workflows end-to-end and independent management of issues across channels. As evidence, Yang cited the experience of global footwear brand Amerlife, which leveraged the VOC Solvea AI agent to automatically resolve half of its customer issues at 85% accuracy, reducing manual workload and accelerating complaint resolution. Javier Corral Jr., VP product strategy of Netcore Unbxd, said that adoption of agentic AI will eventually lead to fully autonomous e-commerce including near-real-time updates of structured and unstructured data from all enterprise touchpoints which will lead to AI-driven decision autonomy, and eventually autonomous e-commerce. Although TikTok currently faces a ban, the general outlook on its utility as a social commerce channel here was quite bullish. During her fireside chat, Papich described the “massive halo effect” the video-focused social media app has for Crocs. “TikTok drives direct sales, it impacts sales on other channels,” said Papich. “You want to create an environment where influencers will be. It’s not just transactional.” Kristina Nolan, VP, media services of digital marketing agency DMI Partners, echoed Papich’s observation about the app’s value as a tool to spread awareness. “TikTok is an engine of discovery,” said Nolan. “You must use it through that lens. It’s a platform in its infancy. Onboarding for sales is more complex than for other platforms.” Jake Karls, co-founder of healthy snack brand Mid-Day Squares, said since his company is Canadian it cannot sell products on TikTok, but still leverages the app to bring in customers, especially through the use of influencers. “A TikTok creator network amplifies your brand voice. You need a creator engine.” Nolan and Karls agreed that a major benefit of engaging influencers and creators on TikTok is the ability to develop brand advocates who in many cases will help spread the word about your products without being paid.
VantageScore 4.0 is coming but much work needs to be done and analysts suggest it would arrive sometime around the summer of 2026
In the days following the announcement that VantageScore 4.0 was suddenly in play for conventional mortgages, FinLocker‘s Brian Vieaux had to burst some bubbles. Most of the 15 to 20 loan officers he spoke to were ecstatic about being able to use the new credit scoring model. Millions of new prospective borrowers could be scored with VantageScore, they said. That’s opportunity in a down market. “I was like, ‘OK, guys, totally agree. If you can wave a magic wand and tomorrow — in your point of sale and your LOS, and the underwriting engines and all the technologies that that talk downstream — this was there and ready, yeah, I think it would open up some interesting opportunities with borrowers. And it will,” Vieaux said. “The other side of it is talking to the owner-operators of these companies, and they’re like, ‘This doesn’t become reality till 2026.’” For about a week, the mortgage industry operated in confusion about what comes next. It wasn’t even clear whether the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) wanted both FICO and VantageScore scores, or if they wanted lenders to choose between the two. FHFA Director Bill Pulte on Tuesday afternoon clarified several key points about Fannie Mae‘s and Freddie Mac‘s embrace of VantageScore, which is collectively owned by the three major credit reporting bureaus — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. The tri-merge credit report will also remain. Pulte said lenders will be able to choose between FICO Classic, introduced in the late 1980s, and VantageScore 4.0. The GSEs will be working to update their Selling Guide policies, but at the moment they are not currently able to purchase mortgages with VantageScore 4.0 credit scores. The agencies will also need to create a new loan level pricing adjustment (LLPA) matrix before it can purchase loans with VantageScore 4.0 credit scores.
Lovart’s generative design platform users enables users to generate up to 40 high-fidelity, premium assets in minutes with just a simple text prompt or a reference image by assessing and analyzing the brand’s requirements, business context, and the target audience
Lovart, a bold AI design and branding Agent, has officially launched its long-awaited generative design platform, exiting Beta with a bold mission: to generate six figure or higher branding and advertising campaigns using nothing more than a single text prompt. Under the hood, Lovart is powered by its proprietary creative reasoning engine, MCoT (Mind Chain of Thought). Going as far as assessing and analyzing the brand’s requirements, business context, and the target audience, its output is on par with top-tier Creative Directors and professional-grade visual assets. With just a simple text prompt or a reference image, users can generate up to 40 high-fidelity, premium assets in only minutes. From branding kits, social posts and storyboards to UI flows and even packaging, Lovart delivers a breadth of output rarely seen in a single platform. But what truly sets it apart is its creative intelligence – the first of its kind to infuse visual outputs with an unexpected, witty, and human-like flair. The Features Redefining Creative Work: ChatCanvas – Lovart’s “ChatCanvas” is an infinite, intelligent canvas that responds to intent through shared visual and dialogue. It is built for true creative collaboration between humans and AI. Multi-agent Co-Creation – Autonomous Design Intelligenc; . Long-Term Recall – . Learns and Predicts Workflow Habits – Advanced Canvas Editing –Top AI Models Under One Roof – As a full-spectrum creative suite, Lovart also supports cross-modal generation across image, video, and audio. Lovart supports top AI models including GPT Image-1, Flux Kontext, VEO3, OpenAI-o3, Gemini Imagen, Kling AI, Hailuo, Tripo AI, Recraft v3, Runway Gen-4, Ideogram 3.0, Rodin, and more.
Flyhomes’ platform enables homebuyers to use equity from their current home toward a down payment by securing a backup offer on their current home before it’s sold, which removes their existing mortgage payments from debt-to-income calculations
Seattle-based real estate FinTech firm Flyhomes has raised $15m in funding to transition from a direct-to-consumer platform to a wholesale financial product provider. The Series D funding round was backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Norwest Venture Partners, Canvas Ventures, Camber Creek, Al Goldstein, and Mark Vadon. Flyhomes, founded in 2016, offers innovative lending solutions that enable homebuyers to purchase their next property before selling their current one. The firm’s core product, “Buy Before You Sell,” is central to its wholesale strategy, which now focuses on partnerships with loan officers and real estate agents. Flyhomes currently holds lending licenses in 40 US states and plans to expand to more.
Productivity app Ocean works with Gmail or Google Workspace accounts allowing users to turn their emails into tasks and action items and helps triage inbox by letting users filter emails by categories like first-timers, persistent pingers, and emails from contacts
A new personal productivity app called Ocean is launching to help you triage your overloaded inbox, take action on your emails by turning them into tasks, and share your availability for meetings with others, all in one app. The app works with Gmail or Google Workspace accounts, allowing users to turn their emails into tasks and action items so they’re not forgotten. To make this work, the app includes its own Task Manager that has access to the user’s email. That means you don’t have to copy or paste information into an external to-do app while instead gaining access to features that go beyond what Google’s task manager offers Gmail users. With Ocean, you can create tasks using rich formatting, set due dates, organize tasks into folders, and link emails to your task’s notes. It can also automatically pull out action items from longer emails for you. You can choose to manage the emails you mean to reply to later by creating a task as well, instead of leaving them unread or applying a label of some sort. For inbox zero enthusiasts, the killer feature will be Ocean’s inbox triage tools. The app lets you filter emails by categories like first-timers, persistent pingers, and emails from your contacts. It can even surface emails that are marked as spam but might belong in your inbox, so you don’t miss anything important. Ocean also offers subscription management tools in addition to the baseline email functions of composing, replying, flagging, archiving, and deleting email. Plus, Ocean offers built-in meeting scheduling tools that let you set your availability based on your pending and booked events. Here, you can set your open times and block others from booking those meetings at the last minute, which is a handy trick. You can also send an automated email invite to meeting recipients, confirm meeting proposals from a web interface, and automatically add confirmed meetings to your calendar.
Jack Henry launches “MyFinancialHealth” on its digital banking platform designed using a configurable free-to-premium model, allowing financial institutions to offer key features at no cost to users, with optional paid upgrades
Jack Henry has launched MyFinancialHealth, allowing over 1,000 banks and credit unions to embed a suite of financial health tools powered by Array. The platform offers a broader suite of embeddable tools, including credit monitoring, identity protection, online subscription management, and federal student loans. The platform is designed using a configurable free-to-premium model, allowing financial institutions to offer key features at no cost to users, with optional paid upgrades for enhanced control and protection. The platform is easily activated through a single configuration, eliminating APIs, onboarding burden, and custom development. The launch aligns with Jack Henry’s mission to deepen the connection between accountholders and their primary financial institutions, reducing financial fragmentation and improving digital engagement. Array reports that users visit its components an average of 2.2 times a month, with many opting for premium services.