Comfi’s Denis Gavrilin named to Airwallex Startup Finance 30

Dubai, UAE, 23 October, 2026: Denis Gavrilin, Co-founder and CFO of Comfi, has been named to Airwallex's inaugural Startup Finance 30, a global list recognizing 30 finance leaders behind the world's most ambitious startups. The list is decided by an independent jury of CFOs from Deel, Notion, Vercel and Airwallex, operators who evaluate the work firsthand rather than from the outside.

Gavrilin was recognized for building Comfi's credit framework from the ground up and for taking the company's $65M financing round from structuring through to close, during a period when regional capital was harder to raise, not easier. That framework now underwrites more than $150M in financing deployed to over 1,000 SMEs across MENA. Gavrilin is the only Startup Finance 30 honoree building out of the UAE.

"What makes this particularly meaningful is who made the selection, an independent jury of CFOs who know firsthand what it takes to finance growth and build the systems behind it," said Denis Gavrilin, Co-founder and CFO of Comfi. "My name is on the list, but there's a lot of shared work behind it. Thank you to Airwallex and the jury, and congratulations to everyone else on it."

Building the underwriting engine behind Comfi's growth

Gavrilin designed Comfi's underwriting framework end to end: risk appetite policy, customer segmentation, eligibility criteria, concentration limits, and the Credit Committee governance that sits above all of it. He integrated bureau, bank statement, accounting and fraud data into an automated decision engine, applying computer vision for document analysis, machine learning for automated scoring, and digital footprint tools to sharpen credit decisions and portfolio monitoring.

Comfi thanks Airwallex and the Startup Finance 30 jury, Rama Katkar, Marten Abrahamsen, Joe Kauffman and Pranav Sood, for the recognition.

About Comfi

Comfi is a Dubai-based B2B fintech founded by Sanjar Samiev, Alisher Akbarov, Amal Abdullaev and Denis Gavrilin. Comfi helps UAE businesses unlock working capital tied up in receivable invoices, as an alternative to business loans. UAE-registered B2B companies trading for 12+ months with AED 300K+ monthly revenue can apply at comfi.ai.

Media contact: Nikhil Wadhwa, Brand Manager, nikhil@comfi.ai