--- title: Forward Wants to Fix Private Credit's Paperwork Problem subtitle: Forward Launches to Fix the $1.7 Trillion Private Credit Market's Biggest Bottleneck: Deal Screening description: A three-week-old YC startup wants to automate how private credit deals get packaged and matched to funds. Here's what Forward actually does, what's still unverified, and why the timing makes it worth a look. tags: [Forward, useforward.co, Y Combinator, YC Fall 2026, private credit, AI fintech, deal origination, B2B SaaS, fintech startups, commercial lending, credit analysis, startup analysis] category: Startups & Funding language: en collaborators: Rocky Essel [author] published_at: 2026-08-15T21:09:18.516Z updated_at: 2026-08-15T21:09:16.758Z content_warning: Safe for readers of any age to understand the content word_count: 657 word_time: 2 min mentioned_at: [] related_articles: [https://www.useforward.co/] published_to: [] is_featured: false --- **San Francisco, CA, ** [Forward](https://www.useforward.co/), a new AI-native platform for private credit deal origination, today announced its emergence from [Y Combinator's Fall 2026 batch](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/useforward) with a mission to eliminate the single biggest source of friction in private credit, the manual, spreadsheet-driven process of screening and matching borrower deals to fund mandates. Private credit has become one of the fastest-growing asset classes in finance, and one of the least modernized. Deal teams still spend hours rebuilding the same borrower financials across incompatible spreadsheet formats, manually calculating covenant structures, and cold-routing deals to funds based on relationships rather than fit. Forward was built to close that gap. "_Private credit outgrew its own infrastructure,_" said the Forward founding team. "_Funds are moving billions of dollars through a process that still runs on PDFs and email. We built Forward because we lived this problem from the inside, and we knew exactly what needed to change._" #### From Raw Documents to Actionable Deals in Minutes Forward's platform ingests a borrower's financials, deal proposal, and bank statements, then automatically extracts the metrics credit analysts spend hours pulling by hand, [LTM revenue](https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/valuation/ltm-revenue/), adjusted [EBITDA](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ebitda.asp), gross margin, net leverage, [DSCR](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dscr.asp), with no manual re-keying required. From there, Forward's proprietary AI Structure engine proposes a complete facility, **size**, **tenor**, **pricing**, and **covenants**, **tailored** to the borrower's specific financing needs. The platform then intelligently routes each deal to the private credit funds whose lending mandates are the strongest fit, flagging key risks and outstanding diligence items up front, turning a folder of raw documents into a decision-ready package. Forward doesn't stop at origination. Its execution and management agents continuously monitor deals through the full lifecycle, surfacing covenant or repayment risk before it becomes a breach, giving funds an early-warning system that simply didn't exist before. The results speak for themselves, Forward has already helped originate more than **$100 million in deals**, is used by funds representing **$20 billion in assets under management**, and saves analysts more than **25 hours per week, **which is time redirected toward sourcing new opportunities and deepening borrower relationships instead of rebuilding spreadsheets. #### Built by Operators Who've Lived the Problem Forward's founding team ([full bios](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/useforward)) combines deep private credit expertise with proven product execution. [Riley Janjis](https://www.linkedin.com/in/riley-janjis-6aa9b5264/) previously worked as an analyst at [Rixon Capital](https://rixon.capital/) and [Longreach Alternatives](https://www.longreachalternatives.com/), where he conducted due diligence on more than a billion dollars in credit. [Daniel Yoon](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielyoon2004/) brings firsthand experience in private credit from his work at law firm [Kain Lawyers](https://kainlawyers.com.au/). [Darryl Luo](https://www.linkedin.com/in/darryl-luo-b0496a266/), Forward's technical co-founder, previously served as CTO of [Lima AI](https://limaspeak.ai/), where he shipped and scaled a product from the ground up. "_We're not outsiders trying to disrupt an industry we don't understand_," the team said. "_We've sat on the desks where this pain is felt every day. That's the difference._" #### A Narrow, Purpose-Built Solution While the market includes broader platforms addressing adjacent parts of the capital markets stack, Forward has deliberately focused on one thing: matching borrower deals to fund mandates in private credit, and doing it better than anyone else. That focus is by design. "We didn't want to build a horizontal tool that does everything a little," the team noted. "We wanted to build the best possible solution to this one problem." Forward is already working with a growing roster of leading private credit funds, including Via Private, [Namdar Capital](https://www.namdarcapital.com/leadership), [Arbitrium Capital Partners](https://www.acpartners.com.au/), [iPartners](https://ipartners.com.au/), [Hudson Cove Capital Management](https://hudsoncovecapital.com/), Astro Capital, Eastwave, and [Equilibria Capital](https://equilibriacapital.com/). #### What's Next Forward is currently onboarding new fund and advisor partners and plans to expand its platform capabilities throughout 2027. Interested funds and commercial debt advisors can request a demo at [useforward.co](https://www.useforward.co/contact). **About Forward** Forward is an AI-native platform that transforms private credit deal origination — turning unstructured borrower financials into structured, actionable deals in minutes instead of days. Founded in 2026 and based in San Francisco, Forward is part of Y Combinator's Fall 2026 batch. **Media Contact:** [inquiry@useforward.co](mailto:inquiry@useforward.co) --- **Source:** [Forward Wants to Fix Private Credit's Paperwork Problem](https://emrite.xyz/forward-wants-to-fix-private-credit-s-paperwork-problem) **Domain:** emrite.xyz © 2026 Emrite. All rights reserved. **Attributions:** - Rocky Essel (author)