- 1CapFront recorded 124% three-year growth and ranks No. 2,607 on the 2026 Inc. 5000.
- 2It is leaning on affiliates and partnerships for leads as AI changes search.
- 3CEO Zack Fiddle says most borrowers still want to speak to a human.
CapFront, an SMB financing brokerage, posted a three-year growth rate of 124%, placing it at No. 2,607 on the 2026 Inc. 5000. Co-founder and CEO Zack Fiddle credits a shift in lead generation and heavy use of AI tools.
Marketing after the AI shake-up
In early 2023, before the AI wave hit the internet, Fiddle said a brokerage would struggle to grow long term without a robust digital marketing strategy. This year, he says, CapFront has made a big push on strategic partnerships and affiliates for lead acquisition, which has put it on many rate-comparison lists that surface in Google and LLM searches for top business loans and financing providers.
Fiddle says the company had not done much of that style of marketing in earlier years. It now relies on partners whose reach exceeds its own. He says AI has changed the landscape for digital marketing, especially SEO. Some larger online customer aggregators in finance, including public companies, have reported over the past 18 months that traditional search engines are less dependable than they used to be. CapFront is also pursuing other lead strategies to keep leads diverse and high quality.
Using AI inside the company
Fiddle says the company's Claude Cowork bill has increased exponentially in recent months, but that the tool lets the team move much faster. One major project expected by year-end is now nearly finished.
One of the more unusual deployments is a sales coach modeled on the company's VP of Sales Training. The chatbot was given access to hundreds of thousands of sales call transcripts, along with the VP's feedback and advice on those calls, and is more elaborate than that description suggests. Fiddle said talking to it feels like talking to the VP, and that he can now build ideas that previously seemed out of reach.
The human element
Even so, Fiddle said business owners still depend on people to navigate financing options. In his experience, including this year, the majority of borrowers want to speak with a human, and he argues that human relationships, not self-service, drive customer relationships.
Source reporting: deBanked.
