CarbonAI has raised $12 million in funding to expand its agentic AI platform for commercial real estate lending, with the round led by Cowboy Ventures and participation from Timber Grove Ventures, Bling Capital, and Max Ventures.
The New York-based company develops AI agents that automate analytical work across the life of a commercial real estate loan, including underwriting, due diligence, investment memo preparation, and post-close monitoring. CarbonAI is targeting an industry where lending teams continue to rely heavily on spreadsheets and manual document review.
CarbonAI’s agents extract and structure information from rent rolls, leases, financial statements, and legal documents before building underwriting analyses, drafting investment memos, and identifying risks for human review. Each output links back to its underlying source document to provide an audit trail, while decisions requiring human judgment are routed to lending teams.
After a loan closes, the same platform can continuously monitor performance and surface potential risks rather than relying solely on periodic manual reviews. CarbonAI said its technology is designed to work alongside lenders’ existing processes rather than requiring firms to replace established workflows.
The company points to a substantial opportunity within the approximately $20 trillion U.S. commercial real estate market. According to figures cited by CarbonAI from the Mortgage Bankers Association, $875 billion in commercial and multifamily mortgage balances are scheduled to mature in 2026. The company also estimates that commercial real estate lending teams spend approximately $50 billion annually underwriting new and existing loans.
CarbonAI launched its first product suite in early 2025 and said early customers have reduced the time required for some core underwriting tasks, including lease reviews, financial statement analysis, and loan onboarding, by as much as 90%. The company reached seven figures of contractual revenue within six months of launch.
Its customers now include debt funds, mortgage REITs, agency multifamily lenders, and publicly traded financial institutions. Greystone is among the firms using CarbonAI, including for automation of due diligence collection within its underwriting processes.
CarbonAI was founded by Jeff Saul and Josh Kaufman, who previously worked in commercial real estate lending at firms including Starwood Capital, Morgan Stanley, and Guggenheim. The pair previously built Nativ, a commercial real estate deal management platform that worked with more than 30 lenders representing over $300 billion in assets under management before being acquired by Built.
KEY QUOTES:
“Josh and I spent the early years of our careers buried in the same manual work Carbon now automates. Lenders don’t need another chat window that they have to coach through every step. They need agents that already know the job, do it end to end consistently, and show their work, so their teams can spend their time on the judgment calls to make more, high-quality loans and protect their existing book. That’s the tool we needed when we were analysts, so it’s the one we built.”
Jeff Saul, Co-Founder And CEO Of CarbonAI
“Carbon was a clear choice and natural partner to us to automate due diligence collection: one of the most significant yet overlooked bottlenecks in underwriting. They won us over because they listen. Rather than pushing a solution in search of a problem, Jeff and the team took the time to understand our underwriting challenges and deliver a solution that actually fits our business. They ship fast, and their point of view on where automated CRE work is headed has been invaluable.”
Mordecai Rosenberg, Co-President Of Greystone
“When we first met Carbon, some of the top lenders in commercial real estate were already customers. Those lenders told us two things: First, generic tools don’t work in a business this complex, where the data is messy and the margin for error is close to zero; Second, they only wanted to work with people who came from their world. Jeff and Josh spent their careers in commercial real estate lending, then built and scaled the software they wish they had. That combination is why the best lenders trust them.”
Caroline Duffy, Partner At Cowboy Ventures
