US-based Prodigal, which offers software for loan servicing and collection, has raised $12m in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures.

Existing investors who participated in the round include Accel, Y Combinator, and MGV.

The round also saw participation from industry veterans like Eric Sage (COO Plaid), Anand Joshi (ex American Express), and Nicholas Hinrichsen (CEO Carlypso).

Prodigal will use the proceeds to expand its suite of intelligent workflow and optimisation products. It also plans to expand its team.

The company leverages conversational artificial intelligence technology to offer its clients insight into key customer interactions and enables them to offload repetitive tasks from agents to AI solutions.

The start-up noted that its decision engine helps clients maximise recovery rates, optimise operations, and minimise compliance risks.

Prodigal CEO and co-founder Shantanu Gangal said: “Prodigal turns interactions into insights. These standardized and structured insights flow between stakeholders like loan originators, capital providers, agencies and customers. This improves the speed and transparency of decision making; delivering a customer-first experience while decreasing the cost of loan operations.

“Lenders lose about a third of their time to routine tasks like filling out paperwork or following up with customers after calls. Prodigal automates many of these processes, freeing up an enormous amount of time for agents to focus on the human side of their interactions with customers.”

Croom Beatty of Menlo Ventures said: “Over the past 10 years, the vast majority of innovation in lending has focused on customer acquisition and underwriting, but the actual post-funding interactions with customers remain entirely manual, leading to mediocre customer experiences. We’re excited to see Prodigal automate some of these busted workflows.”