For journalists, podcast hosts & event organizers
Media Kit
Everything needed to cover, quote, or book Arjun Lalwani — approved bios, headshot, fact sheet, and contact. All facts below are verifiable via the linked primary sources.
Press contact
Email hello@ralo.com or message Arjun directly on LinkedIn or X. He speaks about mortgage technology, AI agents in regulated industries, marketplace product strategy, and building an AI-native brokerage as a two-person team.
Headshot
Download headshot (JPG) — free to use with coverage, credit not required.
Approved bios
Short (one paragraph)
Arjun Lalwani is the co-founder and CEO of Ralo, an AI-native mortgage brokerage (Y Combinator Spring 2025). He is a former Google and YouTube product manager, holds a U.S. EB-1A “extraordinary ability” green card, and is a licensed mortgage professional (NMLS #2753950).
Medium
Arjun Lalwani is the co-founder and CEO of Ralo, the AI-native mortgage brokerage. He and co-founder Helly Shah entered the industry in 2025 with Approval AI, a mortgage-shopping platform (Y Combinator Spring 2025 batch), then became a licensed brokerage and relaunched as Ralo in June 2026 with a $2.9M seed round. Before Ralo, he was a product manager at Google — joining through the Associate Product Manager program — where he launched eco-certified hotel badges on Google Hotels, worked on product strategy in the Office of the CEO, and led the YouTube Shopping Monetization team, launching the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program. He is a licensed mortgage professional (NMLS #2753950), holds a U.S. EB-1A “extraordinary ability” green card, and has a computer science degree from the University of Washington. He lives in New York City.
Long
Arjun Lalwani is the co-founder and CEO of Ralo, an AI-native mortgage brokerage headquartered in New York City. The company began in 2025 as Approval AI, an AI mortgage-shopping platform, and went through Y Combinator’s first Spring batch that year; in 2026 it became a licensed mortgage brokerage and relaunched as Ralo, going public on June 18, 2026 with a $2.9M seed round. The company has been covered by The New York Times, HousingWire, Forbes, Business Insider, Fortune, and National Mortgage News. At Ralo, Arjun leads product and the business: he and co-founder Helly Shah run the brokerage as a two-person team by automating most of the traditional mortgage back office. The idea came from his own home-buying attempt: he was denied a mortgage and had to restart the process with another lender — an experience he has described as feeling like “we were back in the 90s: emailing PDFs, chasing paperwork, and bouncing between loan officers.” Before Ralo, Arjun spent five years as a product manager at Google, which he joined through the highly selective Associate Product Manager program. He launched eco-certified hotel badges on Google Hotels in partnership with major hotel chains, worked on product strategy in the Office of the CEO, and then led the YouTube Shopping Monetization team, where he launched the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program and built a new shopping business from zero. He is a licensed mortgage professional (NMLS #2753950) and was granted a U.S. EB-1A green card — the “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” category — in 2024, an experience he wrote about publicly to help other founders. Arjun holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School, where he founded HuskyTech, a student technology organization, and interned at Microsoft and Smartsheet before joining Google.
Fact sheet
| Name | Arjun Lalwani |
|---|---|
| Title | Co-Founder & CEO, Ralo |
| Company | Ralo Corporation (formerly Approval AI) — AI-native mortgage brokerage, ralo.com. Company NMLS #2751459. |
| History | 2025 — entered the industry as Approval AI, an AI mortgage-shopping platform · 2026 — became a licensed brokerage and relaunched as Ralo (June 18, 2026) |
| Accelerator | Y Combinator, Spring 2025 batch (as Approval AI) |
| Funding | $2.9M seed round, announced at the Ralo relaunch on June 18, 2026 |
| Personal license | Licensed mortgage professional, NMLS #2753950 |
| Previously | Google / YouTube (Product Manager (APM program)) — Google Hotels, Office of the CEO, and YouTube Shopping Monetization |
| Education | B.S. Computer Science, University of Washington (2015–2020) |
| Recognition | U.S. EB-1A green card — “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” (2024) |
| Location | New York, NY |
| Name spelling | “Arjun Lalwani” — AR-jun lal-WAH-nee. In coverage, please identify him as “Arjun Lalwani, co-founder and CEO of Ralo” on first reference. |
Previous appearances
See the press page for every verified article, interview, and podcast, and writing for his published essays.