specialty-finance
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Kiran Kapur Built a Lender for the Deals That Need a Second Look
After decades inside large finance companies, Kiran Kapur made his first entrepreneurial bet on a neglected corner of the middle market. Ten years later, 36th Street Capital shows what can happen when a lender treats complexity as work to be understood, not a reason to walk away.
Briggs Elwell
Briggs Elwell is the co-founder and CEO of RLTYco, a New York-based specialty finance and services firm built for independent (1099) real estate agents. After more than 15 years in real estate - from sales and asset management at The Related Companies to building the Northeast business for OPTIMAR International - he co-founded RLTYco in 2021 with attorney Daniel Kennedy. The company started by advancing agents their commissions within 24 hours and has grown into a one-stop platform spanning commission funding, tax and financial tools, legal formation, healthcare, and rewards. In January 2025 RLTYco raised a $20 million Series A led by Altriarch and acquired the rewards technology of Zurp.
Johannes Jaeckle
Johannes Jaeckle is the co-founder and CEO of Heron Data, a New York fintech that uses large language models to automate document-heavy workflows in financial services. Heron reads emails, classifies submissions, extracts data, and syncs it into CRMs and loan platforms for more than 150 customers - from small lenders to FDIC-insured banks - processing over 350,000 documents a week. Jaeckle started building with LLMs in 2020, two years before ChatGPT went public, after a fintech operating career that included running the remittance company Taptap Send and serving as UK Managing Director of Segovia Technology. In July 2025 Heron raised a $16.6M Series A led by Insight Partners.