View the 16-slide Pitch Deck for Google-backed Lending Fintech Miren

• Miren offers software to help lenders underwrite credit-thin small business borrowers.
• Wharton grad Gabriela Campoverde launched the startup while in business school.
• Campoverde was recently named a finalist for the David Award, a $200,000 philanthropic grant awarded annually to five New Yorkers.

Gabriela Campoverde could already count many years of experience from two of the country’s largest financial firms, American Express and Goldman Sachs, when she went to the business school at the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.

But instead of using her time at Wharton to land a new job at a major financial firm, she shifted her focus to study the business needs of South Philadelphia’s Mexican community. Campoverde went door-to-door talking to the owners of small businesses like South Philly Barbacoa, one of the city’s most popular restaurants, and learned about the gaps in access to capital that exist for Latina and Latino entrepreneurs.

“There’s a lot of cultural difference when it comes to immigrant communities that affects the way people think about their financing capital, or whether they even want to take out a loan,” Campoverde told Insider.

The experience led Campoverde to launch a small business loan origination platform while in school, giving up internships to spend the summer of 2021 working on the startup. But after finding that the capital providers she had to work with were hesitant to lend to credit-poor borrowers, Campoverde went on to found Miren—a fintech that offers the software that mission-oriented lenders can use to more efficiently lend to small business borrowers.

“Our whole idea was that we will underwrite the small business without looking at the credit history, because evaluating the small business is much more powerful than evaluating the score which doesn’t necessarily look at the projections of the small business or at the achieved growth or potential,” said Campoverde.

Launched in 2021 and based in Philadelphia, Miren’s software can be used by CDFIs to track the documents needed to manually underwrite borrowers — instead of relying on credit scoring — and manage their loan portfolios. CDFIs, or Community Development Financial Institutions, are federally certified lenders that focus on reaching underserved customers in low- to moderate-income areas. Miren also offers a built-in customer relationship management portal and tools that can also be used by lenders to reach out to potential borrowers and send application reminders via text, email and WhatsApp.

“Anyone who builds projects will tell you that changing behavior is the hardest thing to do,” Campoverde said. “How can we really work with CDFIs to give them a tool that will enable them to do more with what they already have?”

Campoverde said Miren is still getting started and looking for its first customer. For now, the startup is focused on reaching a subset of CDFIs, non-profit lenders, where Campoverde says Miren’s technology could have the biggest impact. The startup has been in talks with “close to a hundred” CDFIs in New York and states like California, Alabama and Texas, and is eyeing initial collaborations with two as Miren beta-tests its new products.

Miren hasn’t raised any equity investment to date — for one thing, Campoverde said, many venture investors don’t have relationships with CDFI borrowers — but the young startup has raised more than $46,000 in grants, including a $10,000 grant through Google for Startups. partnership with venture firm Visible Hands, announced in August.

Also in August, Campoverde was named a finalist for the David Award, a $200,000 philanthropic award given annually to five New Yorkers (Campoverde is originally from Queens).

See Miren’s 16-slide pitch deck that earned Campoverde a finalist spot for this year’s David award.