Fixing the Broken Appraisal Model in Asset-Backed Lending With Thomas Galbraith, CEO of Barkr

Thomas Galbraith is the CEO and co-founder of Barkr, an AI-driven valuation platform for asset-backed lending. He spent his early career in high net worth insurance at AIG and AXA, where he grew comfortable with the challenge of pricing hard-to-value assets. That thread ran through every role he held until it crystallized into a company built around a simple but structural problem: in asset-backed lending, appraisers give you a price and then spend the rest of their report telling you they're not responsible for it. Barkr is built to change that.What We CoveredThomas's background in high net worth insurance at AIG and AXAHow a common thread across luxury assets led to founding BarkrStarting with fine art and private jets before expanding to other asset classesThe two-part failure in traditional appraisals: accuracy and absence of liabilityHow Barkr pairs an AI valuation with a contractual performance warrantyThe progression from Lloyd's of London to AXA to Munich Re$2 billion in covered valuations and what patience actually means in this businessGPUs as a surprisingly durable and long-lived collateral asset classHow Barkr finds clients, from pavement pounding to Nvidia referralsMonthly mark-to-market on hard assets throughout a loan's lifeBuilding a domain-specific LLM with human review in the loopPlans to build an in-house insurance vehicle to unlock capacityKey TakeawaysTraditional appraisal firms hedge their liability by design. Page one is the price; the rest of the report is the disclaimer. Barkr's contractual warranty flips that model by standing behind the number.Barkr's data on GPU durability challenges the conventional narrative. Chips five and seven years old are still generating revenue and still have meaningful resale value, which changes the risk calculus for lenders considering AI infrastructure as collateral.Augmenting, not replacing, is the right positioning for valuation technology. Barkr actively encourages clients to keep using their existing appraisers and treats third-party appraisals as additional data inputs that improve their own accuracy.Building a reinsurance relationship takes years. Barkr worked through Lloyd's, then AXA, before landing Munich Re, and each step required demonstrating proof of concept at the prior level first.About Thomas GalbraithThomas Galbraith is the CEO and co-founder of Barkr. He began his career in high net worth insurance at AIG and AXA before founding Barkr to bring accountability and AI-driven accuracy to asset valuation in the lending market. Barkr has covered approximately $2 billion in valuations across art, private jets, vehicles, and GPUs.Connect with Fintech One-on-One:Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes