Meet the Founders

We’re the first startup born from a merger during a YC batch. Both of us came into Y Combinator W26 with different companies and different cofounders. A few weeks later, we ended up merging and building Copperlane together.

Meet Athan

Before founding Copperlane, Athan studied computer science at Princeton and was a quantitative developer at Five Rings. Mortgage had always been close to home, as his parents worked at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He even got his mortgage loan officer license to prove it. :)

Meet Brianna

Before founding Copperlane, Brianna studied computer science and finance in Penn’s M&T program. She previously worked in trading on Wall Street and founded a startup for private equity deal sourcing. Her family also worked in housing finance and real estate.

The Tale of Two Breakups

During the YC batch, both of our startups reached a point where we and our cofounders realized we had different long-term visions. The friendships were still strong, and the decisions to part ways were mutual and amicable.

We were now just two founders who had gone through cofounder breakups. Both of us had already been prefiltered by the pressure cooker that YC is and still wanted to keep going.

During the batch we had become close friends, and we had both watched each other go through one of the hardest things a founder can experience. Coming out of that, we could see the determination in each other to keep going and build something great.

The more we talked, the more we also realized how similar our backgrounds were.

We both grew up in the same hometown area and around the mortgage industry. We both cared deeply about fixing it. And we both wanted to build something ambitious in this space.

So we decided to combine forces to build Copperlane.

Why Mortgage

Mortgage origination is one of the largest financial markets in the world.

Over $2 trillion in mortgages are originated every year in the United States. Yet the process behind it still runs on legacy software and endless document chasing.

It costs lenders ~$12,000 to originate a single loan. Much of that cost comes from manual work that we believe should not exist anymore.

Borrowers upload the wrong documents. Loan officers spend hours chasing paperwork. Underwriters inherit messy files that slow down approvals.

Everyone involved feels the friction.

What We’re Building

Copperlane is AI-native software for mortgage origination.

Our AI agent Penny works directly with borrowers to guide them through applications, collect the right documents, verify them live, and build a structured financial profile before the file ever reaches a loan officer.

Loan officers receive clean, organized files and can focus on bringing in new clients and closing loans.

What’s Next

We started working together only recently, but the momentum has been incredible.

Within the first two weeks, we closed our first customers and are already embedding with mortgage lenders processing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual loan volume.

We’re excited to keep building alongside them.

If you’re a lender curious about what AI-native mortgage origination looks like, we’d love to talk.

Reach out at founders@copperlane.ai.