AI-enabled delivery and AWS-based fintech platform for Kafene
Vention helped build Kafene’s core product capabilities from the ground up. The scope included a real-time risk-scoring and underwriting engine, the Kafene Shop marketplace, aggregator partnerships, IVR automation, and a custom contract-generation system.
A dedicated team scaled from two to seven engineers as the platform evolved. AI-enabled development workflows increased engineering efficiency by 15 to 20% and supported consistent, high-quality feature releases over time.
Client overview
Project description
Our solution
Core product features
We built and released product capabilities that directly support Kafene’s business model:
- Risk scoring and underwriting module: A real-time scoring engine that assesses risk and helps identify eligible customers for financing.
- Kafene Shop: An integrated marketplace where approved customers can browse and purchase additional goods from partner retailers.
- Ecommerce integrations: “Pay with Kafene” options across ecommerce checkouts, which enable financing directly at the point of purchase.
- Aggregator partnerships: Integrations with additional LTO aggregators to expand distribution reach and increase merchant diversity.
- IVR automation: Automated call routing that reduces manual handling in customer support.
- Contract and PDF generation: A custom, in-house solution for contract generation that automates complex financing paperwork and removes reliance on third-party document tools such as DocuSign or DocuSprings.
Architected for reliability and scale on AWS
The platform runs on a production-grade AWS foundation built around containerized microservices, isolated environments, and layered security controls. Microservices stream data from multiple sources into a unified Snowflake data lake, which enables analytics and reporting without affecting real-time transaction processing.
The architecture supports real-time underwriting and payments while preserving stability, performance, and data integrity as transaction volume grows.
See a detailed breakdown of how Vention designed and stabilized Kafene’s AWS infrastructure here.
AI-enabled engineering and delivery
We applied AI across the engineering and delivery process, embedding it into development workflows, quality assurance, and operational processes rather than limiting its use to isolated features.
- AI-assisted development, supported by Cursor IDE, improved code quality and increased team efficiency by 15-20%. Vention engineers used AI to navigate large codebases, refactor legacy logic, and reduce the likelihood of common runtime issues such as invalid states and missing validations.
- Automation of repetitive engineering tasks reduced routine work, allowing teams to focus on high-impact initiatives and maintain smoother delivery cycles.
- AI-supported code review through CodeRabbit helped eliminate manual bottlenecks, surface potential issues earlier, and improve overall code reliability, especially in areas with duplicated logic and evolving APIs.
All these practices made it possible to sustain a consistent delivery pace while keeping the platform stable as it continued to evolve.
Results
Three years ago, I made the decision to switch to our external development team, adopting a quality-over-quantity mentality. I made the difficult choice to end our previous partnership and transition to Vention.
In hindsight, that was the best decision I ever made. Almost all of our code is now industry-leading, from our underwriting codebase to our merchant dashboard to our entire payments system. We have been able to rewrite nearly all of the old legacy code while adding new features and entirely new products.
During partner integrations, they often mention that our API is so clean and fast that we are consistently the easiest integration they have ever done. All of this is thanks to the amazing developers at Vention and the innovative processes and perspectives they bring to our day-to-day operations.”
James Schuler
Co-Founder of Kafene
Key stats
Partnership duration
3+ years, ongoing
Team growth
3.5x (from 2 to 7 engineers)
Partner integration time
Reduced from 1-2 months to 1-2 weeks
Engineering efficiency
Increased by 15-20%
Codebase quality
96% aligned with architecture standards
PR review speed
30% faster with AI-assisted review
Tech stack
FAQs
How did AI-assisted development impact Kafene's delivery speed?
AI-assisted workflows increased overall engineering efficiency by 15 to 20% and reduced pull request review time by 30%. Those gains enabled a lean team to maintain a consistent delivery pace as the platform expanded.
What fintech features did Vention build for Kafene?
Vention helped build Kafene’s real-time risk scoring and underwriting engine, the Kafene Shop marketplace, ecommerce checkout integrations such as Pay with Kafene, LTO aggregator partnerships, IVR automation for customer support, and a custom contract generation system that replaced third-party tools like DocuSign.