"Ari Malik doesn't spend much time worrying about AI hype cycles. While Silicon Valley debated the philosophy of artificial general intelligence, Malik was building something far more sustainable, prosaic-and profitable-from his bedroom: a system to help repo men and loan officers collect debt. Alongside co-founder Mukund Tibrewala, Malik set out to automate one of the most grueling, regulated, and high-turnover corners of finance."
"Salient's growth has been swift but conservative (at least, in the context of the AI bubble). Just 18 months after inception, Salient raised $60 million in a Seed A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, reaching a valuation of $350 million as of June 2025. Malik told Fortune that Salient's annualized recurring revenue has now surged past $25 million-nearly double the $14 million figure reported six months ago."
""This is an area of the economy that has so been left behind by technology, and that consumers are, by and large, left to fend for themselves, that they often don't know their rights, they often don't know their processes," he told Fortune. "And so we thought there's a huge potential here for AI to be like a 10x solution, rather than a 20 to 30% improvement.""
Ari Malik and co-founder Mukund Tibrewala built Salient to automate loan servicing tasks such as collections calls and payment processing for auto lenders. The software replaces traditional call centers and manual workflows in a highly regulated, high-turnover segment. Salient raised $60 million in a Seed A round led by Andreessen Horowitz 18 months after inception and reached a $350 million valuation by June 2025, with insiders later valuing it near $500 million after additional funding. Annualized recurring revenue climbed past $25 million, retention remains strong with no customer churn, and growth prioritized sustainability over hype.
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