A small business owner may only start looking for money when payroll is due or a new location becomes possible. Claurelle Rakipovic believes finance should reach the business earlier, while there is still time to act.
Pipe is built around that idea. The embedded capital platform allows software companies to offer financing directly to the businesses using their products. Business owners can receive an offer within the software they already use instead of searching for a lender.
Claurelle came to this problem with years of experience in financial products. Her first lessons in business began at 15. Back then, her father asked her to trade scrap steel with companies in East Asia. She later founded a technology company, built lending and international business payments products at Amazon, and worked on product development at Capital Group.
In the newest Women Leading the Way podcast episode, Claurelle joins host Maria Tunikova to explain what embedded capital looks like in practice. A credit score only shows part of a company’s situation. Order fulfilment, opening hours and changes in daily activity can also reveal whether a business is growing, slowing down or approaching a cash shortage.
This information can help a provider decide whether a business is ready for capital and when that capital would be most useful.
Claurelle also questions the way many financial companies use AI. Adding a chatbot to an existing process may make the technology visible, but it does not necessarily improve the result. At Pipe, AI helps with underwriting, fraud checks and compliance. The goal is to remove steps that no longer need to exist.
Her final advice is for women who postpone opportunities because they do not feel completely prepared:
“Remember that ready is your definition.”
Claurelle encourages women to build careers around learning. Some decisions will fail, but that does not make them wasted if they lead to new knowledge and a better understanding of what follows.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or listen to it on YouTube.
