Todd Sanders and Carlos Castro saw an opportunity when they discovered employees at credit unions and small banks often manually entering data into Excel spreadsheets.
“It’s difficult to believe in this day and age that things are being done manually,” he said.
In April, the business partners started Kor Software Inc. to provide those same two sectors with a cloud-based platform offering commercial real estate loan-risk management and reporting.
Sanders has worked in the finance and technology industries for 20 years, including helping a music-download startup in the late 1990s. Castro founded and served as chief executive of C&G Technologies Inc., a Lake Forest-based internet technology consulting and services firm where he said he increased annual revenue from $100,000 to more than $10 million.
The two started the company after being approached by software developer Luke Sharkovski, who’d built a program for a credit union to conduct oversight of its commercial loan portfolio. He wanted help selling the program to other businesses.
Customers, after installing the cloud-based program, can monitor any aspect of loans, such as daily data and portfolio optimization, the company said on its website.
Sanders cited an example of a customer that previously assigned 13 employees to prepare a report using spreadsheets, a task that would require 14 workdays.
“Now, three people prepare the report in a one-day review,” he said.
The three-person company is now ready to market its product. It has a small office in Ladera Ranch and is looking for space elsewhere.
Competitors include Jack Henry Banking, which provides off-the-shelf banking software, and FIS Global (NYSE: FIS), a Fortune 500 company with 20,000 clients.
Castro and Sanders said they also foresee opportunities in smaller credit unions and banks that larger competitors might ignore. And they’re considering expanding into similar products for autos, personal credit and small-business loans.
“We’re focusing on niche markets that have been neglected,” Sanders said.
— Peter J. Brennan
