Dismayed that many of San Francisco’s office towers still echo with emptiness? Then you may celebrate that certain industries are quietly filling the gaps. Fintech, that heady blend of financial services and technology, is among them.
Just one firm to watch is Kikoff, which offers a suite of products designed to help people build credit histories. They offer everything from secured credit cards and lines of credit to AI-driven debt settlement and bill-negotiation programs. Business is booming, and so is the company’s footprint.
Founded by Cynthia Chen, an immigrant from China, Chen knows firsthand what it’s like to be young, broke, and credit-invisible in America. At the height of Covid, she launched Kikoff in Jackson Square, later moved to larger offices on Hawthorne Lane, and, having outgrown those spaces, relocated in October 2025 to 633 Folsom Street, where they will soon occupy two expansive floors.
The vast majority of Kikoff’s employees live locally and work on-site. Why has Chen chosen San Francisco to be the company’s headquarters — and what could possibly make her pack up and leave? We asked. She told.
Why is Kikoff headquartered in SoMa?
We spent quite a few months looking for different office spaces in the city. We really liked this building because the design is very unique, and it’s right across the street from where we were last. The windows are built in a way that allows a lot of natural light in but doesn’t let the heat through. It’s a very eco-friendly, energy-efficient building, and we love that.
We have 150 team members now, and probably a bit over 100 are based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Many live in the city. Some of us live in the East Bay, some in the South Bay, and a few in Marin, but it’s all commutable to this neighborhood.
Is there a San Francisco-specific draw?
Definitely. San Francisco is very unique because it has probably the highest talent density in our industry. If you look at our company, we’ve grown very fast. We have top-notch talent who can do things really quickly, allowing us to test and learn at a very fast pace and maintain very high product velocity.
As a company we need to be in a city where there are a lot of talented people, but also to be located in a city where people can reasonably commute to work. We’re very close to the Montgomery BART station. It’s also walkable from the Caltrain station and very close to a Muni stop, so you can’t complain about the commute! We’re also very close to a highway exit, so driving from the South Bay or East Bay is very manageable. And of course, if you live in San Francisco, getting here is even easier.
So that’s why we picked San Francisco: because of the talent and the public transit system.
In a tight housing market like San Francisco, good credit is important. Want to talk a little about how Kikoff helps?
I can give you a great example!
Employee number one was an 18-year-old high school graduate. He took some college courses in computer science and got bored. He was very fast and he was already winning prizes in the Google coding competition and he just wanted to build things. So we hired him.
One of the main reasons we chose to be here is that San Francisco is the capital of AI talent in the world.
— Cynthia Chen
But in San Francisco you need good credit to rent an apartment and he had no credit profile at all. Then he literally built the product, became its first user, and got a credit score! That’s very cool. He’s been with us for six years now. You saw his dog when you came in.
With competition for top talent fierce, how is Kikoff retaining local staff?
Everyone is fighting for AI talent right now! We’ve definitely had companies like Anthropic and Google’s team approach our people. I think that’s just a fact of life you have to deal with, but that’s why we chose this very nice office.
Breakfast and lunch are provided by the building’s own culinary service team. They do a really good job and use very high-quality ingredients. For dinner, we offer DoorDash to give people even more choices. We provide all kinds of beverages and have state-of-the-art espresso machines, plus healthy and tasty snacks.
We also have a really nice gym that all employees have access to on the first floor, which is a very good perk. If you don’t want to use the office gym, you can get a gym subsidy to stay healthy. On top of that, we have generous commuter benefits to help you get to work. And we’re very supportive of people’s passions. We have a Kikoff band and provide space for them to practice!
I think it’s just important to make the office a place where people feel happy so that they’re willing to come in and are more productive when they work here. That’s what we’re doing.
What are your impressions of San Francisco from a business owner’s perspective?
I think the mayor is doing a good job. I definitely see the streets getting cleaner. I think the homeless issue is being addressed. Now I do see more people choosing to live in San Francisco instead of the suburbs. The majority of our new hires live in the city. That shows people’s openness to living here.
Tax revenue is definitely very important to San Francisco, and the city needs it to provide better infrastructure, to make the city safer and cleaner, and more affordable for people who need affordable housing. The question is, though, what is the best way to achieve that? Because you don’t want the Stripes of the world to keep leaving San Francisco when they feel the tax burden is too heavy.
Would anything cause you to move your headquarters out of San Francisco?
Our goal is to build a generational company that can really benefit many millions of Americans, especially those who are underserved. I think we’ll be very happy to stay in San Francisco unless there are very strong reasons to move elsewhere for lower taxes, better public transit, or better access to talent.
If the city is not safe or clean enough and talent doesn’t want to live here — if they want to live in San Mateo instead, for example — then more companies will probably move to San Mateo because that’s where the talent is. We would then have to consider it too. It’s the natural flow.
One of the main reasons we chose to be here is that San Francisco is the capital of AI talent in the world. It’s very important for this city to maintain its competitive edge in innovation. We certainly are that right now.