Customer Story · Equipment finance lender
A complete, CRM-ready file in 7 minutes — down from 36
i90 Financial is a direct lender in transportation and commercial equipment finance. CEO Eduardo Del Rio had too many hands on every file. Now a verified, decision-ready file lands in HubSpot in seven minutes — fast enough to live by his rule: give a borrower a fast no rather than make them wait.
Eduardo Del Rio on video. Chapters and full transcript
36 → 7 min
to build a complete file and push it into the CRM
Eduardo Del Rio
CEO, i90 Financial
7 min
to assemble a complete, CRM-ready file — was 36
29 min
freed on every file to move to the next deal
1 page
the whole file — write-up, credit, KYB — at a glance
Direct
lender in transportation & commercial equipment
“The ROI is substantial — definitely from a speed perspective — and I believe it's only going to get higher over time, as fewer of my people need to touch each file. Brokers ask me about Kaaj at the conferences, and I give them a thumbs up every time.”
— Eduardo Del Rio, CEO, i90 Financial
The Challenge
Too many hands on every file
i90 Financial is a direct lender in transportation and commercial equipment finance — over-the-road trucks and the like. As volume grew, file prep had become a manual relay: too many people touching each deal, each owning a different step.
Every file meant verifying the business on the Secretary of State, pulling credit, and gathering everything needed to make an assessment — then stitching it together somewhere the team could actually see it. Eduardo Del Rio, i90's CEO, timed his processor: a complete file, built and entered into their HubSpot CRM, took about 36 minutes. Across a busy pipeline, that was the bottleneck between a borrower and an answer.
“We had too many people touching the files — it became a very manual process. Verifying the Secretary of State, the credit pulls, all the steps. I wanted it faster, and I wanted to see it all in one place.”
The Solution
The whole file, on one page, in seven minutes
Now i90 sends what it needs into Kaaj and a complete file assembles itself: SOS and business verification, credit pulled, every document gathered — and, crucially, a write-up on the first page that summarizes the entire deal at a glance. From there it flows automatically into HubSpot, where the team tracks and communicates the deal.
Eduardo clocked the new process at about seven minutes — roughly a fifth of the old 36. His favorite part isn't any single integration; it's that first-page glimpse: open the file and the whole picture — write-up, credit, verifications — is right there.
“Really that first page — seeing all the information at a glance, like a write-up — I find very useful. And the credit's just there, automatically.”
The Results
A faster yes — and a faster no
The 29 minutes Kaaj gives back per file isn't the part Eduardo gets animated about. It's what the speed lets him do for the person on the other end of the deal. His philosophy: give a fast no rather than make someone wait. When a borrower is excited about a piece of equipment — and a dealer or broker is waiting on an answer — the worst outcome is a slow maybe.
For a direct lender competing on speed, getting to a clear yes or no quickly is the edge. Kaaj lets i90 move a file to underwriting or a pre-approval decision while the deal is still hot, then move straight to the next one.
Eduardo expects the ROI to compound. Twelve months out, he sees fewer people needing to touch each file and resources shifting to higher-value work — and he wants to approve deals from his phone, in real time, as the file comes together.
“I'd rather give a no faster than take forever to give a no. If you're excited about getting that piece of equipment, you'd rather know quickly — whether it's a no, or the yes that we're interested in the deal.”
Beyond the software
A partner that knows lending — and picks up the phone.
The Kaaj team — including founders Utsav and Shivi — works hands-on with every customer. No retrofitted generic tool, no AI chatbot standing between you and an answer.
Responsive support
“You put a Teams group together where we can constantly be chatting, and it's real time. I find that very helpful.”
Built for this industry
“Any idea that comes to mind, your team finds a way to see how it can be implemented. I've worked with other software and services before — this is different.”
In Eduardo’s words
The transcript of the video above, by chapter. Watch with chapters
Full transcript
Too many hands on every file
We had too many, too many people touching the files. It became a very manual process. It's really what had, why I started, like, looking into something into Kaaj, because I wanted to make it, I wanted the process to be faster, as far as at least gathering all the information that we needed to make the assessment on the file, but to see it all in one place.
36 minutes → 7 minutes per file
For a file to be created and also be put into a CRM, which is HubSpot, I would say it would take on average about 36 minutes, because I was timing it, how long it would take the person that was doing it to actually put it together, probably about 36 minutes. And then with Kaaj, as long as the file's complete, right, like, as everything's coming in, although what we require, which is not a lot, I've clocked it at about seven minutes.
A faster yes, and a faster no
First of all, that they can move on to the next file. So, definitely when there's a lot of volume coming in, it helps get to the next file quicker and move it on to underwriting or at least get into a pre-approval stage. So, I believe it's meant a lot to at least give an answer, because I have the philosophy that I'd rather give a no faster than take forever to give a
The one-page write-up
For me, I would say that that's definitely one of the best parts. And, yeah, like the pulling of the credit, right, that everything is just there automatically. But really, that first page of seeing everything, seeing all the information on that first page as a deliver, like a write-up, I find it very, very useful.
Recommending Kaaj to brokers
Yeah, so we're a direct lender. So brokers actually coming out of the AACFB, people have asked me, oh, what do you think? And I've given you guys all a thumbs up, right? So yeah, I definitely told them I would highly recommend you.
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