Pratik Risbud
CEO and Co-Founder Kato
Pratik Risbud is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kato, building the future of automated loan servicing. Kato provides a compliance-first Voice AI agent that automates end-to-end servicing and collection calls for modern lenders, including Parafin, Bluevine and Obligo.
His career has been defined by a passion for solving complex problems in finance and credit - spanning the largest financial institutions to venture-scale startups. As an Investment Banker at Goldman Sachs, he advised the world’s leading technology and media companies on high-profile M&A transactions. Later, at fintech unicorn Brex, he developed credit strategy for products like Brex’s Mid-Market Card and partnered closely with the Servicing team, where he saw firsthand how manual and repetitive servicing remained.
Inspired by advances in generative AI and natural language processing, he founded Kato to help servicing teams scale efficiently and maximize recoveries without sacrificing compliance.
2026 Agenda Sessions
Startup Pitch Competition: Round 1
Early-stage fintech founders take the stage to pitch their innovations live. Two standout startups will be awarded $50,000 SAFE notes, selected by a panel of expert judges.
Sponsored by Commerce Ventures and Lowenstein
Monday 30 March 12:30 - 13:15 The Pulse
Sponsored by Commerce Ventures and Lowenstein The Pulse US/Pacific
What does trust look like across the payments stack?
As payments become more distributed and interconnected, trust is no longer owned by any single player — it’s built collaboratively across networks, platforms, and market‑level providers. This session brings together leaders shaping different layers of the payments ecosystem to explore how trust is engineered, measured, and scaled across the stack.
Tuesday 31 March 10:20 - 11:00 Payments
Infrastructure & APIs
