- Hi, my name's Sean Salas,
I'm the CEO and co-founder of Camino Financial.
We're a FinTech platform pioneering affordable credit
to underbanked microbusinesses.
We use the power of technology and AI
to make sure that that capital is more accessible
and affordable than anywhere else
where they could find that credit.
I'm the son of an entrepreneur that immigrated
from Mexico in pursuit of the American dream.
My mom, she opened over 30 restaurants here
in Southern California called El Mexicano.
It really set the foundation for that work ethic,
our passion for small business.
And it really enabled me to empathize
with the broader U.S. Latino community
that I don't think I otherwise would have.
We founded Camino Financial in 2014,
and I'm proud to say that we've deployed over 5,000 loans
aggregating to over $120 million
into underbanked microbusinesses
predominantly in the U.S. Latino market.
AI and the human element is a big factor
of what makes us unique.
When we think about our tech stack and the foundation,
it really does start with AWS.
And we're really excited about that.
And we're equally excited about
where AWS is taking its underlying technology
to facilitate the development of AI,
such as with SageMaker for instance,
of being able to add more bells and whistles
that enable us to focus on our core
and not necessarily over-focus on the foundation
of that infrastructure.
And it is not only saving a lot of money
that does translate into lower cost loans,
it also enables us to innovate in places
where we think we have a core competency relative
to anyone else in the U.S.
So what's unique about Camino Financial
is not only the underlying data
that we're collecting on the market,
but it's also what you make sense of that data
in the form of AI and ML inference models, that yes,
enable us to underwrite more efficiently
and score them using our Camino score
to influence every vertical of the credit application
and funding and servicing and wealth creation process.
And I think that makes us the most insightful
in deriving insights and unlocking invaluable potential
of the microbusiness economy.
When I think about success stories at Camino Financial,
I can't help but think about Juan Reyes
who owns Flaco's Custom Food Trucks.
He is not only an entrepreneur himself
that's growing substantially,
but he is also enabling other entrepreneurs
within his communities to start their own businesses.
After his first loan, his business grew by over 60%.
he was one of those people
that had a limited credit history.
And over the course of his borrowing experience
with Camino Financial has been able to increase
his FICO score at over 100 points.
And so that has enabled him to not only grow his business
but also access lower cost of capital with Camino Financial.
- [Juan] Hi, my name is Juan.
I'm co-founder of Flaco's Custom Food Trucks.
We build kitchens inside the trucks
and we build food trailers, food trucks.
So we build their dreams on wheels.
Our motivation to start this project
is my people, my Latin people.
They was looking for new opportunities to build a business,
and I think the food truck is a great way
to start a new business because it's not that expensive
as a restaurant.
Camino Financial has impacted my business in a good way,
because with all the loans we get from them,
we can get wholesale products
and we can give better prices to my customers.
- Financial inclusion was always our North Star
as a solution to addressing some of the struggles
that we saw our mom experience.
And that really was the seed that planted Camino Financial.
I think today, yes, we wanna offer more credit products
to our members that enable them
to build generational wealth.
What I think is even more exciting
is over the course of the next five to 10 years,
we really wanna offer an embedded finance solution
into all our members.
Because what we found is that,
in order to unlock your sales,
credit is a big component to that.
And I think this presents a really unique opportunity
for Camino Financial to truly create systemic change,
not just in the microbusiness economy,
but how that microbusiness economy unlocks
the broader U.S. economy.