Meet the man saving South Australians millions on their mortgages

Fintech start-up Sherlok founder and CEO Adam Grocke has his eyes firmly on the prize.

Adam Grocke has a bold vision: to become the No.1 online repricing and refinancing platform for mortgage brokers in Australia. And, given just nine months after launching Sherlok in January 2021, the financial technology company has grown from two to 14 staff, closed out its second over-subscribed seed funding round and now has about 200 brokers and 20,000 homeowners using the platform, it would be a safe bet to say he is on track to succeed.

It’s a satisfying reward for Grocke, who has used his 12 years’ of experience working as a mortgage broker to build the refinancing platform – with a little help from his friends. “I’m non-technical so I jumped well and truly out of my comfort zone. I put the best team I could find together and we built the whole system,” he says.

Sherlok’s refinancing platform offers three key services: prediction, retention and refinancing. “We use artificial intelligence to predict which of a broker’s clients is likely to leave that broker within the next three to six months, with the majority having home loan interest rates that are too high,” Grocke says. “We can then get that customer a lower interest rate with the same lender (repricing). If the current lender doesn’t offer a competitive rate, the Sherlok engine runs a refinance comparison customised to that customer’s loan profile and connects them with their broker to refinance.”

Adam Grocke, Sherlok founder and CEO. Picture: Russell Millard

The platform uses advanced technology to facilitate the process. “Machine learning and artificial intelligence analyse and add value to data, which is how we get accurate customer retention predictions,” Grocke says. “Our platform will run refinance comparisons in a matter of seconds, whereas it could take a broker up to 15 minutes.”

And the results are already impressive: Sherlok has saved Australian homeowners more than $2 million since April and is on track to record $1 million per month by the end of the year.

Being located within the Stone & Chalk Startup Hub at Lot Fourteen is also paying dividends. “It’s fantastic – it’s a melting pot of the smartest, most ambitious people in South Australia and it’s amazing how much everyone wants each other to succeed,” Grocke says. “We’re currently working with a lender who was introduced through Stone & Chalk and that is looking very likely to turn into a strong strong partnership. I pinch myself every day and go, ‘Wow, are we doing this? Yes we are’. Our target is to have 7000 brokers across the country by the end of 2023. We have a lot of work to do but we’re making good steps.”