Pagaya

Founded in Tel Aviv

Pagaya was founded in 2016 by Gal Krubiner, who serves as CEO, Yahav Yulzari, and Avital Pardo, the chief technology officer. At a Calcalist conference in New York in 2025, Krubiner said the company was started on Kalisher Street in Tel Aviv, and that its first million dollars came from the Viola fund. From the start, the company targeted the American credit market. Today it operates from New York and Tel Aviv.

The product: a second look at people who were turned down

According to Calcalist, Pagaya's algorithm lets consumers who were rejected by American banks get credit after all, because it uses a large amount of data to assess risk more accurately. The company works through a network of partners, banks and fintech companies, that connect to its engine. It invests in the loans through funds it manages, and it also finances them by issuing asset-backed securities to investors. According to Krubiner, its partners include U.S. Bank, Klarna and SoFi. The goal he set in 2025 is for all 20 of the largest banks in the United States to use the company's technology.

Going public through a SPAC

In June 2022, Pagaya began trading on Nasdaq after a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), completed at a valuation of $8.5 billion. According to Globes, the stock fell 67% in its first weeks and then jumped sharply within a few days. Most market players attributed the jump to a short squeeze, made possible by the small number of shares available for trading. Before the listing, the founders converted their shares into a class with preferred voting rights, and so kept control of the company. According to Globes, even before the listing the three sold shares in secondary deals worth a total of $200 million, and the large shareholders included Tiger Global, the Viola fund and Clal Insurance.

The numbers in 2026

In the second quarter of 2026, Pagaya reported net income of $45 million under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and revenue of $387 million, up 19% from the same quarter a year earlier. The volume of loans that passed through its network reached $3.5 billion in the quarter, up 33%, driven mainly by auto loans. Following the results, the company raised its annual guidance. In September 2026 it added Jason Gardner, founder of the payments company Marqeta, to its board of directors.

What to know about the model

Pagaya is not a bank, and most of its work happens behind the scenes at its partners. This is also its weak point: to fund the loans, it depends on investors who buy its bonds. In its second-quarter 2026 announcement, it noted higher funding costs because of market conditions. Automated underwriting of consumer credit is also a sensitive field: a model's decision determines whether a person gets a loan.