Karoo
Karoo is a YC Winter 2025 (W25) company. Based in Toronto, ON, Canada. Team of 3.
About Karoo
Summary
Karoo builds a fully online consumer lending product for Canadians, offering personal loans between $500 and $5,000 with instant pre-approval decisions and same-day funding. It targets borrowers shut out of or underserved by Canada's incumbent bank branches, replacing a slow, in-person loan process with a transparent, digital one that carries no hidden fees and no early repayment penalties.
Business model
Interest charged on loans at an APR of 31.99% to 34.99% over 6 to 24 month terms
Go-to-market
Individual Canadian consumers in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Alberta apply entirely online without visiting a branch, making the product fully self-serve from application through funding.
From the Y Combinator listing
Canadian neobank focused on lending
Canadians have not benefitted from fintech innovations in the last 10 years. They are stuck with a banking oligopoly and limited access to tech-first financial offerings (a lot of products still require you going to a branch in person!). We're fixing this.
Facts
- Fintech / Fintech -> Consumer Finance
- Toronto, ON, Canada
- 3
- Active
- Early
Founders (3)
- Hugo Markland
- Jeanot Dawson
- Oliver Lambson
Score every batch against your own thesis
GPAgent's sourcing agent reads every company in a batch, scores each one against your fund's thesis in a private workspace, and lines up the founders worth meeting before Demo Day. You decide who to contact. Your scores, notes, and pipeline never appear on these pages.
How Accelerator intelligence works