#StartupsEverywhere: Kamal Nahas, Co-Founder and CEO, pap!
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Saving consumers $70B through AI
Navigating the fine print of commerce as a consumer is, at best, tedious and obscure. Kamal Nahas, co-founder and CEO of pap!, is using AI to cut through the tangled web of laws and policies and get consumers money back on their purchases. We sat down with him to discuss his company, the privacy policy landscape, and the American visa process.
Tell us about your background. What led you to pap!?
My co-founder, Anthony, and I have always been passionate about consumer and shopping technology. At 15, we started our first business together in Lebanon.
After growing up in Lebanon, we both moved to the US for college—I went to UC Berkeley, and Anthony went to USC. We both studied electrical engineering and computer sciences, where we honed our technical skills. I worked at Apple as a security and machine learning engineer, while Anthony worked at Addepar as a financial software engineer.
Our origin pap! origin story dates back to Anthony’s work at Lebanon’s largest fashion retailer, where he noticed that the same bag was sold for dramatically different prices across retailers and countries. There were countless arbitrage opportunities, but only businesses were taking advantage of them. That’s when we realized it was time for consumers to benefit too.
Most retailers have a policy that entitles you to a partial refund if an item you bought goes on sale shortly after your purchase. For example, if you buy a t-shirt from Gap for $50, and it drops to $30 two weeks later, you’re entitled to a $20 refund. You just have to call customer service and request it. But most consumers either don’t know about these policies or don’t take the time to claim them, leaving billions of dollars unclaimed every year.
We decided to change that by building PAP!, a service that automates price adjustments. Sign up once, and without lifting a finger, you’ll get money back every time something you’ve already bought goes on sale.
Where do you operate and who are your customers? What is the work you all are doing at pap!?
In one sentence, we’re using AI to save people money on the things they have already bought. Consumers aren’t just missing out on price adjustments or the occasional discount—they’re leaving billions of dollars on the table across nearly every spending category. More than $70 billion goes unclaimed every year, not because it’s unavailable but because people don’t have the time, knowledge, or tools to claim what’s rightfully theirs.
Between getting the difference back after an item you purchased goes on sale, compensation for delayed flights, price drops after booking a hotel room, and class action lawsuits consumers don’t even know exist. There’s so much money sitting on the table for consumers, and those are just the obvious ones. The truth is that consumer spending is far from optimal. It’s riddled with inefficiencies, which leave everyday people short-changed in ways they never imagined.
So far, we have refunded tens of thousands of dollars to our users from over 300 stores, airlines, and enterprises. With our recent round of funding from investors, including Y Combinator, General Catalyst, and Goodwater Capital, we plan to increase this number.
We believe personal finance is entering a new era where you no longer need tips or advice on how to save or claim money. Instead, intelligent agents will do all the hard work for you, and you’ll simply see more money in your wallet. While most of our work today is centered around getting you money on purchases you have already made, the same applies for purchases you are about to make: we recently released a shopping concierge that buys what you want at an average discount of 19% — it abstracts away all the methods to save money on a transaction and gives you the end result.
How does pap! manage its data privacy? Do you have to feed private information into your AI for it to work?
Privacy is at the heart of what we do. To help consumers claim money they’re entitled to, we need detailed purchase information, which is why we use email e-receipts. For example, to claim a price adjustment, we need to know not just that you spent $100 at Nike, but exactly what you bought—down to the style, size, and color of the item. Credit card data doesn’t provide this level of detail, but email receipts do. This data is crucial for unlocking savings opportunities, whether it’s a price adjustment, flight delay compensation, or even hotel rebooking when prices drop. We’ve partnered with Google to ensure your information is handled with the highest security standards, and our advanced AI processes the data autonomously so that you can earn money effortlessly and securely.
Are there any local, state, or federal startup issues that you think should receive more attention from policymakers?
I feel very strongly about the visa process because it’s a constant source of worry. It forces us to divert time and energy away from the business to focus on issues that, while secondary to the business, become critical due to their impact on whether we can remain here. The support from Y-Combinator helps a lot.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email advocacy@engine.is.
