Funding Solutions is the new customer-facing lending arm of a fast-growing U.S. small-business loan brokerage. They came to us for a self-serve platform that could generate and qualify leads without adding to the sales floor.
The process ran on loan officers. The product had to run on its own.
Deals moved through calls, emails, PDFs and spreadsheets, and the know-how lived with the loan officers who ran them. It worked, but every new loan needed a person to move it forward.
Funding Solutions needed one coherent product that could take a business owner from first form to funding, across many loan products and lenders.
We weren't improving UX. We were designing the first digital version of the business.
Lending is tightly regulated and there was no internal documentation, so we reconstructed how underwriting actually worked before designing a screen.
We interviewed key players and mapped the full loan lifecycle, from lead to funding: what triggers each status change, what underwriting needs, and which data objects exist (application, offer, stipulation, booster, document, profile).
Four pillars, built so new loan products plug in without a redesign.
• Applications: one hub for progress, status, documents and activity. • Offers: side-by-side comparison across loan products. • Eligibility tools: action plans that turn a "no" into "not yet." • Profile and documents: share information once, securely.
1. Systems first.
We defined operational logic where none was written down and shaped the IA so the product reads as one experience, not separate tools.
2. Design for unknowns.
Modular components flex across 10+ loan types, user segments and future features, so the platform grows without starting over.
3. Lower the load on stressed borrowers.
Progressive disclosure, plain language and save-and-resume make a high-stakes application feel like a clear path.
Designed for build, down to the states and triggers.
Smart offer cards, an application status system and an offer-details layer share one data model, with every state and trigger mapped for engineering.
We delivered responsive screens, a reusable component library, documented logic and a handoff guide, all in one Figma package.
A foundation for the roadmap.
Funding Solutions is in active development. Automated underwriting, post-funding servicing and a business tools marketplace are next on the roadmap, all built on this foundation.