Could machine learning replace the credit score?

Petal has received a $13 million funding round from Valar Ventures, a New York-based venture capital fund that specializes in financial technology, to use artificial intelligence to fill holes in legacy risk vetting. "The problem is not that people have a history of bad credit, but have no history of credit at all," said Jason Gross, Petal's CEO. "They're young or have lacked access to financial services." Petal will use the funds to add scale for its formal launch. The company has been signing up prospective users since the fall and currently has about 40,000 consumers who preordered its alternative payment cards.