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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
All three financial institutions announced this month that they are teaming up with small business lending platform JUDI.AI.
In a series of blog posts at the company’s website, JUDI.AI’s Director of Marketing Kyle Thom welcomed the three credit unions to what he called “our growing group of 35+ forward-thinking community lenders who are on a mission to reinvent small business lending.”
JUDI.AI offers credit unions and community banks an alternative approach to helping small and medium sized businesses secure the funding they need. The company enables financial institutions to digitally transform their credit decisioning and underwriting operations to assess the financial health of their small business customers and members on a continuous basis.
In addition to instant cash flow analysis, automated underwriting, continuous monitoring, and real-time portfolio reporting, JUDI.AI adds automated analysis of current banking data to supplement traditional financial data sources such as credit scores and financial statements.
Here’s a look at JUDI’s new partners:
Apple Federal Credit Union. $4.3 billion in assets. 240,000+ members, Twenty-one locations across northern Virginia.
Carter Credit Union. $722 million in assets. 55,000+ members. Eleven locations in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Fort Worth, Texas.
SCU Credit Union. $1.1 billion in assets. 67,000+ members. Eight locations in southern California and southern Nevada.
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada, JUDI.AI made its Finovate debut at our all-digital fintech conference, FinovateWest 2020. Most recently, the company demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2022. At the event, Thom and JUDI.AI Chief Product Officer Su Ning Strube, demonstrated how the platform enables lenders to process 50% more SME loan applications without committing any additional resources, and approve 20% more loans with no added risk.
“What makes JUDI.AI unique in that we identify cash flow metrics that are predictive and correlated to future defaults, and we combine that information in our proprietary small business model with traditional credit scores to calculate the creditworthiness of any borrower,” Su Ning Strube explained from the Finovate stage.
In addition to the credit unions signed in April, JUDI.AI this year has also welcomed Canadian alternative lender Glasslake Funding and Hawaii’s Kauai Federal Credit Union to its client roster. Kauai FCU is the first and only certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) on the island of Kauai.
Betterment has agreed to acquire Goldman Sachs’ Marcus Invest.
The deal does not apply to Marcus Deposits and does not cover any of Marcus’ technology, employees, or operations.
Financial terms of the deal, as well as the number and value of Marcus Invest accounts, were undisclosed.
Automated investing service Betterment signed a deal with Goldman Sachs to acquire the digital investing accounts at Marcus Invest. Marcus Invest, which offers digitally customized investment portfolios to consumers, will transfer these accounts to Betterment in the coming months. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
The acquisition does not apply to Marcus Deposits, Goldman Sachs’ neobank that currently serves over three million customers globally and has more than $100 billion in consumer deposits. Goldman Sachs plans to maintain possession of and continue to focus on growing Marcus Deposits. The deal also does not cover any of Marcus’ technology, employees, or operations. Betterment will only acquire Marcus Invest accounts and assets under management.
“As we increase our focus on our growing Marcus Deposits platform, we made the decision to transition away from our digital investment advisor offering and wanted to find a great home for those customers,” said Goldman Sachs Marcus Global Head Marcos Rosenberg. “Betterment was the obvious choice for those accounts as we share a deep commitment to customer satisfaction. We look forward to continuing to serve our Marcus Deposits customers with great products and a great experience.”
The number of Marcus Invest accounts, as well as the funds under management that will be added to Betterment are undisclosed. The clients will join Betterment’s more than 850,000 customers who hold more than $45 billion in assets in the Betterment platform.
Betterment was founded in 2008 to combine technology with personalized support to create a roboadvisor that suits a range of customer preferences. The company provides diversified portfolios, tax-smart tools, a range of account types, planning tools, educational resources, and human advisors. Betterment also offers services that compete with Marcus Deposits, including a high yield cash account, checking account, and debit card.
Under the deal, which is subject to customary closing conditions, Marcus Invest customer accounts will be transitioned to Betterment “on or about” June 29, 2024 unless they opt out of the transfer.
“This acquisition further cements our leadership in the digital investing space,” said Betterment CEO Sarah Levy. “We are excited to welcome these customers to Betterment where our scalable technology platform will continue to support them on their investing journeys.”
Data privacy vault Skyflow has raised $30 million in an extension Series B round led by Khosla Ventures.
The investment comes amid growth in the market for sensitive data protection for Large Language Models (LLMs).
Founded in 2019, Skyflow made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022.
Data privacy vault Skyflow raised $30 million in an extension of its Series B funding round. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, and featured participation from existing investors Mouro Capital, Foundation Capital, and Canvas Ventures. The investment takes the company’s total equity capital to $100 million, according to Crunchbase. Valuation information was not immediately available.
The investment in Skyflow arrives as the proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) raises the stakes when it comes to protecting sensitive data. Skyflow’s global network of data privacy vaults enables businesses to isolate, protect, and manage sensitive customer data across any app, data cloud, or LLM. Skyflow supports nearly a billion records of user data for its customers and processes more than two billion API calls a quarter.
“We see an urgent need for companies to make privacy a core part of their technology stack as LLMs and AI hurdle forward, ingesting more and more personal data,” Skyflow Co-founder and CEO Anshu Sharma said. “Skyflow is the only solution that allows companies to build privacy by design into their technological infrastructure without overhauling anything – anywhere in the world.”
Skyflow credits a proprietary technology – polymorphic encryption – for its ability to protect data without inhibiting its usability for critical business tasks. Skyflow’s technology serves as a “privacy trust layer,” blocking sensitive information from entering AI models, and making adoption of AI technology safer. Companies can personalize their own definition of “sensitive data” as needed, providing additional protection beyond PII, intellectual property, or other categories of critical information.
“With the advent of enterprise applications powered by AI, the need for trust and privacy infrastructure is key to protecting sensitive data,” Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla said. “Skyflow is rethinking how data can be managed and protected across any app, cloud, or LLM, making it a company that will be vital for every enterprise business.”
Founded in 2019, Skyflow made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022. At the conference, the company showed how its technology helps financial services companies securely orchestrate sensitive data and exchange it with third party providers without having to directly handle the data itself.
Interested in demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May? We are happy to read applications from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateSpring hub today to learn more.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 21 and 22. Register today using this link and save 20%.
Modernbanc
Modernbanc helps companies effortlessly manage, secure, and reconcile their payment data. Their new AI-powered reconciliations product helps companies automate financial processes.
Features
Automates the most complex reconciliation or financial ETL in minutes
Leverages the power of AI and no-code to give finance teams the superpower of developers
Provides native support for live payments data
Who’s it for?
Financial institutions, fintechs, platforms, and marketplaces.
Parlay Protocol
Parlay Protocol’s embedded fintech software empowers lenders to approve more small business loans, enhancing efficiency, loyalty, and revenue for financial institutions.
Features
Improves small business loan packet quality and conversions
Maximizes eligible applicant pools
Improves underwriting efficiencies
Who’s it for?
Banks, credit unions, small businesses, and CDFIs.
PayToMe.co
PayToMe.co, an award-winning fintech, offers secure, streamlined financial transactions globally with patented text-to-pay, advanced KYC, and partnerships with Plaid, Stripe, and Elavon.
Features
Manages mass transactions and marketplaces via Stripe Connect and onboarding with Elavon
Utilizes Plaid’s KYC, AI, and Apptech’s patents
Offers global digital invoicing (AR) and checkbook AP automation
Who’s it for?
SMBs, larger enterprises, and cross-border entities, particularly those engaged in the travel and global e-commerce sectors.
Safari SOP
Safari SOP transforms how financial institutions manage governmental, civil, and sensitive data requests, providing control, automation, and enhanced security from intake through response.
Features
Enables process control and automation
Saves time, recovers actual costs, and reduces risk
Digitizes and secures the process from intake to resolution
Who’s it for?
Banks, credit unions, and the world’s largest employers.
Tennis Finance
Tennis Finance is an AI platform that automates financial compliance and gets product insights from customer conversations.
Features
Automatically scans 100,000 communications for compliance violations and issues
Provides trend analyses on issues and categorizations
Delivers AI-generated plans to fix issues and increase customer satisfaction
Who’s it for?
Financial institutions, banks, partner banks, fintechs, and non-bank lenders.
TabaPay will use Synapse’s assets to bolster its selection of financial services for fintech firms and financial institutions. Both TabaPay and Synapse offer payouts and payments processing technologies. Synapse, however, also provides neobanking, gig economy, lending, credit, wealth management, and embedded finance tools.
“The addition of the Synapse features is an acceleration of our TabaPay story, one dedicated to delivering great solutions that help our clients rapidly innovate, save money, and offer great financial products to their customers,” said TabaPay Co-founder and CEO Rodney Robinson. “The Synapse assets are a great and natural fit to our existing services to grow our offerings in tandem with providing continuity to Synapse clients and banks.”
TabaPay was founded in 2017 to help clients disburse and collect one million transactions daily– and in real time– on behalf of more than 2,500 clients in the U.S. and Canada. The company’s API offers direct access to 15 banking partners, 16 network connections, and full-stack payment processing. Last March, we spoke to the company’s VP of Strategic Partnerships Maggie O’Toole on her role in the industry.
Both TabaPay and Synapse were listed on Deloitte’s 2023 Fast 500. Synapse has seen a 650%+ growth over the past five years. That growth is now come to a halt, however, since Synapse has today revealed it filed a voluntary bankruptcy petition under Chapter 11. The bankruptcy comes after Synapse’s partner bank Lineage received a consent order from the FDIC earlier this year. The California-based company also signaled trouble when it laid off 40% of its staff last October after losing its client, Mercury, to its partner, Evolve Bank & Trust. Synapse was founded in 2014 and had raised $50.7 million.
TabaPay’s acquisition is pending approval by the bankruptcy court.
As we celebrate Earth Day, we’re taking a look at the state of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals in banking and fintech. Recent actions by the House Financial Services Committee suggest that the industry may be losing sight of these ESG objectives.
For years, the financial services industry has been making progress in its efforts to improve ESG policies by incentivizing clients to choose more sustainable investment options, creating safeguards and efficiencies to create a more sustainable industry, engaging in social stewardship, and more. And while many of those efforts are still happening, some of the progress in ESG has slowed.
The House Financial Services Committee, which has recently taken action on banking regulations and environmental policy, voted along party lines to pass Congressional Review Act resolutions that would void measures aimed at promoting ESG goals. The move would invalidate measures that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and other banking regulators initiated to improve regulation around the industry’s ESG efforts.
One of the key resolutions the Committee has its eye on is a CFPB rule capping credit card late fees at $8. While much of the banking industry is in favor of the resolution, saying that it would protect consumers who pay on time, critics argued that it would disproportionately impact low-income and underbanked families.
The House Financial Services Committee also has its eye on climate change in financial regulation. These resolutions are designed to ensure that banks are transparent about their environmental impact and are managing climate-related risks. The lack of current regulation in ESG has resulted in “green-washing” efforts in which financial services companies promote inflated or irrelevant metrics that provide end consumers the appearance that their company, product, or service is more environmentally friendly than it actually is.
These resolutions represent a significant effort by Republicans in Congress to nullify the Biden administration’s financial policies, including those related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. While they are questioned, However, the resolutions are unlikely to become law due to a lack of Republican votes to overturn a presidential veto.
Happy Earth Day! Partnerships in payments and fundraising in the international investment/wealth management space are dominating fintech news headlines as the week begins.
Subscription management and billing platform Recurlyintroduces new dashboards with built-in benchmarks.
Klarnasells Hero, the virtual shopping platform it acquired in 2021, for $1.3 million (€1.3 million).
SplititunveilsFI-PayLater to empower banks to provide in-checkout installments for existing customers.
Identity verification
Financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology company ComplyAdvantageacquires knowledge graph builder Golden.
AU10TIXannounces $18 billion in business fraud prevented since 2021.
Small Business Tools
BaswareintroducesAP Protect, an AI-powered solution that empowers finance teams to protect their organizations against profit loss, invoice errors, and fraud.
Marqetapartners with OakNorth to offer commercial cards in the U.K.
Payroll
Ripplingraises $200 million in new financing with $13.5 billion valuation.
U.K.-based core banking platform 10x Banking announced a strategic alliance agreement with Deloitte.
As part of the agreement, 10x will build a series of Centres of Excellence in the U.S., U.K., and India to facilitate collaboration between the two firms.
10x Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023.
SaaS core banking platform 10x Banking has inked a strategic alliance agreement with Deloitte. Effective in both the U.S. and the U.K., the agreement will power greater cooperation when it comes to helping financial institutions around the world access transformative technologies.
As part of the strategic alliance, the two firms will launch a series of 10x Centres of Excellence in the U.S., the U.K., and India. The centers will facilitate collaboration between 10x Banking and Deloitte, and should be fully-staffed with their initial 100-member teams by the end of the year.
Courtesy of the alliance, the 10x platform will also be fully integrated into BankingSuite from Converge by Deloitte. BankingSuite is a modern composable platform that enables banks to build new digital capabilities at pace. Introduced in 2022, Converge combines Deloitte’s software, industry expertise, and partner ecosystem to help Deloitte’s clients maximize the opportunities of digital transformation and emergent technologies. This collaboration, between 10x and Converge, will focus initially on serving credit unions, building societies, and mutual banks to help them fulfill their digital transformation goals faster and with less cost.
“By working with Deloitte, we will enable banks and mutuals across the U.S., U.K., and beyond to modernise their legacy tech and deliver financial products and services fit for the 21st century,” 10x Banking Founder, Chair, and CEO Antony Jenkins said. “With Deloitte’s global experience and our leading technological solutions, we have a strategy in place to enact widespread change in the pursuit of making banking ten times better.”
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, U.K., 10x Banking made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. The company won Best of Show for its demo of its 10x Bank Manager, which offers a no-code interface to enable product teams to “build products, offerings, brands, and even enter new markets at speed,” as Product Marketing Manager Nicole Sanders explained at the conference. “Code less. Innovate more.”
10x Banking began 2024 partnering with mortgage origination platform Mast. The partnership will enable real-time connectivity between the two platforms, giving lenders streamlined data exchange and real-time mortgage servicing. Mast CEO Joy Abisaab said that working with 10x would “empower U.K. lenders to unlock new levels of operational efficiency and enable the delivery of exceptional customer experiences.”
10x Banking has raised $297 million in funding. The company includes JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock among its investors.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global reviews the latest fintech developments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
This region features a diverse range of countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia. More than 250 million people live in the CEE, which has a combined GDP of $2.6 trillion.
Romania’s Salt goes live with Starling’s SaaS platform
Romania’s Salt Banklaunched this month, giving the country its first 100% digital bank. Salt Bank reported that more than 80,000 people signed up in less than three weeks to be a part of the new financial institution.
“By launching Salt, we are not only bringing the first 100% Romanian neobank to the Romanian market, but we are also offering a unique perspective that combines technology and finance,” Salt Bank CEO Gabriela Nistor said.
Salt Bank currently offers 3% yearly interest on current accounts as well as on Spaces, Salt Bank’s savings account offering, as long as customers make payments of 1,000 lei/month or more (equivalent to $215). Customers also get a multi-currency card that enables transactions in 17 currencies around the world. Users of the Salt banking app can take advantage of money management tools, in-app card controls, as well as Apple and Google Pay in-app provisioning.
Headquartered in Bucharest, Salt Bank is owned by the Banca Transilvania Financial Group. The institution also offers its customers the opportunity to become founders of Salt Bank and, ultimately, shareholders in the event that the institution goes public. Salt Bank notes that its Salt Founders Community currently has 2,200 members.
Powering the launch is Starling’s SaaS platform Engine, which helped the digital bank onboard 100,000 customers in the first two weeks of operation. And although AMP Bank in Australia has also announced that it will deploy Engine, the institution is not scheduled to do so until 2025, making Salt Bank the first bank to go live with the technology.
“Our work with Salt Bank shows just what our platform is capable of,” Engine by Starling CEO Sam Everington said, “Starling’s feature rich and highly personalizable banking products can be deployed around the world to attract impressive customer volumes, while our operational experience and cloud-expertise can help build, launch, and run a bank in less than 12 months.”
Latvian fintech inGain raises EUR 650,000
inGain, a no-code SaaS loan management system based in Latvia, has raised $692,000 (EUR 650,000) in funding. Participating in the investment were VC funds Trind VC and Fiedler Capital. The Latvian Business Angels network and other business angels were also involved in the round.
The funding announcement marked the first publicly announced investment in a Latvian startup in 2024. The company will use the capital to complete work on its SaaS-based loan management system that helps facilitate lending for products that banks traditionally have been reluctant to finance. inGain Co-founder and CEO Armands Liseks explained how inGain works, using the example of a family trying to decide whether or not to commit to their child’s efforts to become the next Mozart.
“Some parents are ready to buy a piano, but what happens if they spend several months trying to persuade their kids to play the piano, but their kids still refuse to play it?” Liseks asked. “It is with this kind of situation in mind that the seller would like to offer piano leasing. For parents, this means that the payment for the musical instrument will be higher. However, this also gives them two options: either the piano is eventually purchased in full or can be returned to the seller at any time.”
Liseks added that inGain’s solution even benefits those who know they are ready to buy. “How can the bank offer leasing for the piano?” he said. “Most likely it will advise the customer to use a credit card or take out a consumer loan with 20% interest, which makes no sense whatsoever.”
inGain is headquartered in Riga. The company was founded in 2011.
Bulgaria’s Paynetics acquires UK neobank Novus
Here is some CEE-based acquisition news in the payments space that slipped beneath our radar this spring. Bulgaria’s Paynetics has acquired Novus, a neobank based in the U.K., for an undisclosed sum.
A B-corp certified digital bank – and self-described “impact neobank” – Novus enables customers to monitor their carbon footprint and get cashback when they make sustainable purchases via the app. Additionally, Novus automatically directs a portion of revenue from every transaction to an NGO of the customer’s choice.
For Paynetics, the acquisition will enable the company to offer carbon- and climate-conscious solutions to customers as well as expand “the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ecosystem across Europe.” Paynetics will also leverage the acquisition to help its clients achieve their social and environmental goals via its own embedded finance solution.
“This deal not only reinforces our dedication to ESG but also marks a significant leap forward in revolutionizing the financial sector with our cutting-edge embedded finance suite,” Paynetics noted in a post on LinkedIn.
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, Paynetics acquisition news comes a year after the firm was granted an electronic money institution (EMI) license from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Last month, the company announced that it had promoted Hana Rolles from Chief Revenue Officer to U.K. Chief Executive Officer.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Latin America and the Caribbean
U.S.-based recurring payments platform Toku raised $93 million in funding to power its expansion in Mexico, Brazil, and Chile.
Core banking software provider Tuumannounced its expansion to the Middle East and the establishment of a regional headquarters at ADGM.
Israel’s central bank reported that it will launch a sandbox to enable private sector entities to experiment with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
UAE-based digital fintech infrastructure firm Fils teamed up with digital banking solutions company Aion to advanced ESG in the MENA region.
Central and Southern Asia
Amazon Pay introduced credit services to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India.
Bankjoy, a digital banking provider for banks and credit unions, announced a partnership with Pinwheel this week.
Bankjoy will help its more than 70 bank and credit union customers integrate Pinwheel’s digital deposit switching (DDS) solution, Pinwheel Prime.
Pinwheel Prime has been credited with increasing direct deposit enrollment by 32%.
Digital banking provider Bankjoy has partnered with Pinwheel to help financial institutions remove friction from the account activation process.
Via the partnership, Bankjoy will enable its 70+ bank and credit union customers to integrate Pinwheel’s digital deposit switching (DDS) solution, Pinwheel Prime. Pinwheel Prime offers a two-click deposit switch that enables customers to set up their direct deposit in seconds rather than dealing with a multi-step process that requires customers to exit the banking experience.
“By seamlessly integrating from Bankjoy online account opening through various tightly-knit third-party integrations like Pinwheel, we can equip our clients to excel in the competitive deposit market,” Bankjoy COO Weiwei Duncan said. “Our goal is clear: to ensure that our clients not only compete but win the deposit war, leveraging technology to streamline processes and enhance user engagement.”
According to research from Pinwheel, solutions that make deposit switching faster and easier can significantly impact deposit growth. Pinwheel’s own deposit switching technology can enable FIs to boost direct deposit enrollment by 32%, and reduce the amount of time before a customer makes their first direct deposit by 65%.
“With this collaboration, we can bring the ability to easily switch direct deposit settings to an even wider set of consumers, facilitating a fairer financial systems with greater choice and portability,” Pinwheel Co-founder and CEO Kurtis Lin said.
Headquartered in New York and founded in 2018, Pinwheel began the year teaming up with Finovate alum Jack Henry to imbed its direct deposit switching (DDS) solution into Jack Henry’s Banno Digital Toolkit. Pinwheel has raised $77 million in funding according to Crunchbase, and includes Indeed and Franklin Templeton among its investors.
A Finovate alum since 2016 , Bankjoy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall last year. At the conference, the company, in partnership with Panacea Financial, showing how the fintech helped the digital neobank provide financial services to medical professionals.
So far this year, Bankjoy has added two new financial institutions to its customer base: Oregon State Credit Union, which teamed up with Bankjoy in February, and Emporia State Federal Credit Union, which partnered with Bankjoy in March. Oregon State CU ($2+ billion in assets; 142,000+ members) will deploy Bankjoy’s online account opening solution as part of its strategy to fuel new member acquisition and grow deposits. Emporia State FCU, headquartered in Emporia, Kansas, launched its online and mobile banking app in March courtesy of its partnership with Bankjoy. Emporia State FCU has more than $130 million in assets and 7,800+ members.
Founded in 2015 , Bankjoy is headquartered in Royal Oak, Michigan.
From data collection to document generation and e-signatures, Anvil – Document SDK provides a comprehensive solution that prepares organizations for the data-first, AI-driven world.
Who’s it for?
Fintechs, insurtechs, and banks.
BaaSFlow
BaasFlow delivers open-source, cloud native core banking infrastructure and is introducing its Kenu Banking Platform with loan management and BNPL functionality.
Features
Utilizes a robust cloud-based Loan Management System
Delivers reliable, scalable, and proven BNPL capability
Offers a comprehensive front-to-back solution covering all lending and BNPL transactions
Provides post-purchase financing
Who’s it for?
Credit unions, community banks, credit union service organizations, neobanks, embedded finance companies, and payment service providers with a need for embedded lending.
FinTech Insights
FinTech Insights is an AI-powered competitive analysis platform for banks and fintechs. By analyzing digital banking offerings, FinTech Insights enables faster UX research, product releases, and innovation.
Features
FinTech Insights GPT allows users to:
Receive actual and actionable insights in seconds
Streamline product research processes from months to minutes
Make faster, bulletproof decisions with accuracy
Who’s it for?
High-street banks, credit unions, community banks, regional banks, challenger banks, fintechs, and digital banking providers.
LiquidTrust
LiquidTrust gives financial institutions a platform to offer their business customers a safer, new global payment method via micro-escrows. Payments can be made to 175+ countries around the world.
Features
Attracts new SMBs and makes existing ones stickier
Increases non-interest revenue and deposits
Offers easy and quick implementation with hosted, white-label option and all-around support
Mitigates fraud and loss risk
Who’s it for?
Banks, credit unions, payment providers, and SMBs.
SAVVI AI
SAVVI AI lets teams deploy AI-enabled prediction and recommendation models in hours, no specialists needed. Start with a spreadsheet.
Features
Receive AI forecasting and recommendations inside existing Excel spreadsheets
Use without core integration
Saves time, increases accuracy, and lower risk
Who’s it for?
Banks, credit unions, lenders, and payment providers.
AI integration platform AI Squared raised $13.8 million in Series A funding this week.
Participating in the round were ANSA Capital (Allan Jean-Baptiste), NEA (Greg Papadopoulos), and Roger W. Ferguson Jr., former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve System and CEO of TIAA.
AI Squared made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2023 in San Francisco, California.
AI integration platform provider AI Squared has raised $13.8 million in Series A funding. The Washington, D.C.-based startup, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring last year, said that the investment will help the company fulfill its goal of “fostering widespread AI adoption by embedding AI-generated data insights directly into mission-critical applications and everyday workflows,” wrote AI Squared Founder and CEO Benjamin Harvey in a blog post this week.
“As we embark on the next phase of our post-Series A journey,” Harvey added, “AI Squared remains committed to advancing seamless AI integration and real-time feedback capabilities through the development of reverse ETL and lean AI functionalities.”
Participating in the Series A were ANSA Capital (Allan Jean-Baptiste), NEA (Greg Papadopoulos), and Roger W. Ferguson Jr., former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve System and CEO of TIAA. The investment takes the company’s total equity capital to $19.8 million, according to Crunchbase.
Founded in 2019, AI Squared helps companies integrate AI functionality into their applications. The company’s integration platform enables the integration of AI and machine learning technology into any web-based application, shortening integration times from eight months to eight hours. AI Squared enables companies to build seamless connections between data sources and applications; give their business teams easily consumable, relevant, actionable insights; and create feedback loops between consumers and developers that enhance data quality.
In his statement on the company’s recent funding, Harvey underscored that third point about AI Square’s technology, emphasizing it as a “core differentiation” from other providers. “By incorporating real-time feedback mechanisms, like survey questions, directly within business application workflows, we create a feedback loop between line of business employees and data science teams,” Harvey explained. “This allows for prompt improvements to the performance and accuracy of AI models and how insights are delivered to the business.” The result, Harvey said, was a gain in “confidence in AI’s effectiveness within business operations and workflows.”
Learn more about the company and its founder. Read our interview with AI Squared’s Benjamin Harvey from August of last year.
Interested in demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May? We are happy to read applications from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateSpring hub today to learn more.
