Ryan Williams raises $10M seed for Ellis AI, an agent layer for private credit
Cadre co-founder Ryan Williams took Ellis AI out of stealth with a $10M seed from First Round, Khosla, Thrive, and Ariel Alternatives CEO Mellody Hobson. Ellis runs AI agents over the spreadsheets, accounting systems, and documents a private credit firm uses instead of requiring a migration. No customers are named, so the round prices a founder track record — Cadre raised over $160M and sold to Yieldstreet in 2024 — plus a bet that private-markets back-office work is where agent software lands next.
Source: techcrunch.com ↗
Ellis connects to the systems and documents a firm already uses rather than forcing it to rip everything out and start over.
Ryan Williams, Ellis AI founder
Why this matters
- → AI agents tackling private-markets back-office could unlock efficiency gains in a $2T+ asset class
- → Founded by Cadre's Ryan Williams—$160M+ exit validates founder bet on fragmented workflows
- → Agent layer works over existing systems (no rip-and-replace migration risk)
Private credit goes agent-native