Equipment lender KLC Financial is seeing early success with tech provider LeadX’s AI-powered platform that now enables tracking of Uniform Commercial Code filings.  

LeadX recently expanded its platform, originally built as a sales prospecting tool for equipment lenders, after learning that decentralized UCC data was a major pain point for clients, co-founder and Chief Executive John Sokol told Equipment Finance News, a sister publication of FinAi News.  

Tracking UCC filings — legal notices that show a lender’s security interest in a borrower’s assets — is challenging because the availability and cadence with which states provide this data varies significantly, Sokol said. 

“For example, in California we procure that data set weekly,” he said. “Oregon is monthly. Florida is daily.” 

Founded in 2022, LeadX collects raw UCC data as soon as it is made available and organizes it into a database that allows lenders and dealers to search for information on debtors, secured parties, assets and other filing details, Sokol said.  

User POV of LeadX Platform

Finding quality borrowers 

KLC Financial, which started using the platform several months ago, said the company benefits from its ability to identify quality borrowers, Chris Ellis, a business development leader at KLC, told EFN. 

“Before I even reach out, I know what equipment they acquired on LeadX, when they acquired it [and] who financed it,” he said. “I’m not cold calling the so-called tire kickers; I’m getting proven borrowers.” 

Using the platform’s search capabilities, KLC recently closed a deal with a nut processing company that generates more than $100 million in annual revenue, Ellis said.  

“I got on the phone with them and got them approved right away,” he said.

Organized UCC data also helped KLC close a deal with a fast-growing aerospace equipment manufacturer a few weeks ago, Ellis said.

LeadX enables equipment lenders to maintain a full pipeline of leads while eliminating “hours of digging through secretary of state websites or hunting down decision-makers,” he said.  

Powered by AI  

AI plays a key role in structuring UCC data and turning it into actionable insights for LeadX users, Sokol said.  

LeadX user POV

For example, many LeadX customers look to extract asset-specific information from UCC filings, including the OEM or type of equipment, he said.  

“One of the AI applications is parsing that text, especially from older scan filings from the ’90s or 2000s, to identify common misspellings or inaccuracies,” he said.  

“Then, if there’s a high degree of misspellings above a certain threshold, we run it through a large language model to correct those misspellings.”

In addition to simplifying searches, AI “facilitates importing this data into their CRM,” Sokol said.  

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