Conversational AI platform for banks Clinc topped off a year of “explosive growth” in 2017 by generating more than $4.5 million in annual revenue. The strong revenue numbers come as the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based, Finovate Best of Show winner announces the hiring of technology executive Helen Yu (pictured) as its Chief Growth Officer.

Calling Yu’s talents “hard to find,” Clinc CEO Dr. Jason Mars praised the former Hyperion, Oracle, and Adobe executive’s “tremendous knowledge, extensive experience and track record of transforming organizations.” These, Mars said, would be “an impactful asset to our team as we execute our aggressive growth plans, expand into additional verticals and achieve our mission to revolutionize and redefine experiences through conversational AI.”

Yu comes to Clinc most recently from Marketo, where she served as group vice president. While at the marketing software firm, Yu led the enterprise business from 5% of Marketo’s ARR (annual recurring revenue) to 50% within three and half years before the company was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in an all-cash, $1.79 billion deal. An Athena pioneer, the founder and CEO of the Tigon Advisory Corporation, as well as an advisor for Jebbit and the C-Suite Accelerator program, Yu studied at Cornell University and has a MBA from Loyola University in Chicago.

“The combination of Clinc’s market momentum, technical capabilities and diversified leadership team made this an irresistable opportunity,” Yu said. “There’s a massive opportunity ahead of us and I’m elated to help take Clinc to the next level.” Yu underscored the uniqueness of Clinc’s offering and praised the fintech’s execution, as well. “No one has accelerated from product launch to achieving 15x growth within the same year,” she said.

Founded in 2015, Clinc demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2016, earning a Best of Show award for its AI-enabled intelligent financial assistant. In November, the company announced that its technology was live in six countries, including Turkey, where the nation’s largest private bank signed a deal to deploy Clinc’s platform. Also last fall, Clinc announced a partnership with Enacomm to bring its AI chatbot technology to smaller, community banks and credit unions. 2017 also featured a deal with USAA  and the closing of a $6 million Series A round led by Drive Capital that took the company’s total capital to $7.75 million. Dr. Mars participated in our Finovate webinar “How to Make it In the Fintech Industry: 3 Start-Up Success Stories” last year.

Conversational AI innovator Clinc has partnered with Işbank, the largest private bank in Turkey, which will deploy the Finovate Best of Show winner’s technology within its two mobile banking apps. The bank’s mobile banking app will provide users with a voice-activated intelligent personal assistant, while the bank’s mobile wallet payments app will feature Clinc’s AI brain and enable in-store payments and money transfers.

The announcement makes Işbank the first global FI to offer conversational AI with multi-language support. It also means that Clinc’s natural language platform, Finie, is now deployed in six countries and in 80 different languages. The partnership with Isbank alone will put Clinc’s technology in the hands of more than 4.5 million app users.

Clinc CEO and co-founder Dr. Jason Mars demonstrating Finie, a conversational AI platform, at FinovateSpring 2016.

“In contrast to the rule-based, bot-approach taken by all other vendors in the market, the fundamentals of our deep neural-network architecture enable us to break down the barriers to global adoption of conversational A.I.,” Clinc CEO Dr. Jason Mars said. “We can deploy to a bank in Istanbul or Singapore just as quickly and easily as we can deploy to a bank in Chicago or New York.”

Leveraging advanced natural language processing, machine learning, and deep neural networks, Clinc’s conversational AI platform is able to comprehend, recall, and respond to unstructured, everyday human speech. The technology understands speech patterns, word and sentence structure, and sentiment, surpassing other solutions that merely convert speech to text and rely on a set of pre-coded responses. This is also key to the multi-language capabilities of Clinc’s technology. “We’re miles ahead because the only other way to do multi-language is to start from scratch, and to code new rules and new grammar for every new language,” Mars explained.

Clinc demonstrated its Finie conversational AI technology at FinovateFall 2016, winning Best of Show. Last month, the company announced a partnership with Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Enacomm that will make it easier for smaller banks and credit unions to adopt AI chatbot technology. In August, Clinc integrated its technology with the Alexa skill for members of USAA.

Founded in 2015 and based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Clinc has raised $7.75 million in funding and includes Drive Capital, Cahoots Holdings, Hyde Park Venture Partners, and individual investor Stuart Porter among its investors. Company co-founder and CEO Mars was named one of the Top 10 Most Innovative CEOs in Banking 2017 by Bank Innovation. Check out his thoughts on what it takes to become a successful fintech start-up in our roundtable conversation from earlier this year.

You may have met Clinc’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Finie at FinovateFall last year, where the company took home a Best of Show award. Today, thanks to a partnership with Enacomm, the Michigan-based company is making that chatbot more widely available.

Through the reseller agreement, Enacomm will distribute Finie to mid-tier banks, community banks, and credit unions. In a statement Clinc CEO Jason Mars described Enacomm as the “right partner” because the company shares Clinc’s “vision for modernizing the consumer banking experience.” Mars continued, “Teaming up with Enacomm will help us to empower a greater number of smaller financial institutions, like community banks and credit unions, with next-generation, voice-controlled AI technology that otherwise would be out of reach.”

Clinc’s Finie AI chatbot leverages machine learning and natural language to engage users in natural, human-like conversations about their finances without requiring them to learn commands or rules. Finie delivers real-time, personalized responses in chat format ranging from spending advice, balance information, and complex transaction details.

“Not only does intelligent interaction technology conserve resources, but Clinc’s advanced AI platform provides the best experience we’ve seen to enable customers to quickly and easily find the information they need to make informed decisions about their money through conversations with their bank accounts,” said Enacomm CEO Michael Boukadakis.

In August, Clinc announced a partnership with USAA. The startup agreed to power AI for the bank’s voice banking skill for Alexa, enabling USAA’s 12 million members to engage with Clinc’s AI chatbot regarding their finances. The skill is currently in a pilot phase.

Clinc was founded in 2015 by Mars and his fellow University of Michigan professors, Lingjia Tang, who serves as the company’s CSO; Michael Laurenzano, CTO; and Johann Hauswald, Chief Architect. Earlier this year, Clinc raised $6 million in Series A funding from Drive Capital, Cahoots Holdings, Hyde Park Venture Partners, and Stuart Porter. Those funds boosted Clinc’s total funding to $7.8 million.

Clinc’s newly-announced integration with the Alexa skill of USAA will give the 12 million members of the financial service provider access to what the Clinc calls the “first, fully-conversational, AI banking solution.”

“With absolutely no rules or commands to learn, USAA members will enjoy an unexpected, delightful experience that actually feels like an intelligent human interaction,” Clinc CEO Jason Mars explained. “Clinc’s unique approach to conversational AI removes restrictions so consumers can focus on their finances and speak naturally,” he said.

Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Clinc won Best of Show for its demonstration of Finie, a live personal assistant for mobile banking. Finie was an example of the kind of solution that can be built from Clinc’s conversational AI platform. The company’s technology leverages natural language processing, machine learning, and deep neural networks to identify and recognize context, sentiment, and word structure. This enables Clinc to develop solutions that answer users’ follow-up questions, for example, and create technologies that learn and add to their knowledge over time.

USAA members can begin using the solution by registering the USAA skill with Amazon, and syncing their accounts through USAA. Members can also take advantage of a voice PIN option for additional security. Sign up at USAALabs.com.

Pictured: Clinc co-founder and CEO Jason Mars during his live demo of Clinc’s personal assistant for mobile banking technology at FinovateFall 2016.

“This pilot is designed to better replicate the interaction members would have with a USAA service representative on the phone, open new avenues to better serve our members and create more opportunities for our member service representatives to handle more complex member needs,” USAA Labs assistant vice president Darrius Jones said. “What we learn from this pilot will help shape how we view member service in years to come.”

San Antonio, Texas-based USAA has provided financial services to current and former members of the U.S. military and their families since 1922. USAA Labs, launched earlier this year, is designed to give USAA members both access to and opportunity to provide feedback on the firm’s newest technology innovations and exclusive pilot projects. As USAA Labs Strategic Innovations Manager Christee Kahn explained earlier this year in an interview at the USAA Money Matters blog: “(Members) will have the opportunity to vote on specific ideas and concepts developed by our business teams, join pilot programs, provide input and utilize new tools and products that USAA is testing.”

Founded in 2015 by University of Michigan professors Jason Mars (CEO), Lingjia Tang (CSO), Michael Laurenzano (CTO), and Johann Hauswald (Chief Architect), Clinc demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2016, winning Best of Show. The company raised $6 million in funding in February, boosting its total capital to $7.75 million. Mars participated in our spring webinar, How to Make it In the Fintech Industry: Three Success Stories, along with Jeff Cain, Director of the Envestnet | Yodlee incubator and Moven CTO Kumar Ampani. The company raised $6 million in funding in February, boosting its total capital to $7.75 million.