Singapore-based Finbots.AI, an Artificial Intelligence-envisioned firm bringing innovation to banks and financial institutions, today announced it has raised a successful Series A round of USD 3 Million.
This round saw the participation of a single investor - Accel, that made this investment from its Fund VII and this marks the first external investment Finbots.AI has raised.
With this fundraise, Finbots.AI will look towards accelerating product enhancement, marketing and sales, and customer support. The firm is also looking to recruit senior talent and expand its team across its offices with the fresh funds raised.
Credit Scoring is at the heart of lending to consumers and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Challenges posed by legacy platforms and practices limit lending institutions’ ability to determine credit risk, thereby resulting in high risk costs and exclusion of a vast pool of creditworthy borrowers estimated at over USD 10 trillion. Finbots.AI’s advanced AI-powered credit scorecard system, ZScore, democratises access to cutting edge capabilities for all financial institutions, enabling them to rapidly develop high accuracy scorecards and process applications in real time.
Commenting on the successful close of its Series A fundraise, Sanjay Uppal, Founder and CEO of Finbots.AI, said, “This new funding unlocks the next phase of growth for Finbots.AI. Financial institutions today need pathbreaking solutions to solve their complex challenges brought by legacy platforms. Tapping on AI-enabled solutions can help them transform exponentially. We are thrilled to have Accel as a partner in this journey, further cementing the potential and trust in our solution. Accel’s impressive track record with growth stage companies will be a key support for Finbots.AI. We have an enormous growth potential and I am excited for our journey to transforming financial services.”
Finbots.AI was founded in 2017 by Sanjay Uppal, Founder and CEO, and Shripad Keni, Co-Founder and CTO, a duo of experienced industry leaders equipped with knowledge and expertise within the financial industry. Leveraging on deep understanding of financial services and leading-edge technologies, Finbots.AI aims to deliver transformative outcomes for financial institutions and the community at-large.
Since its inception, the firm identified an opportunity to use AI-powered solutions to aid banks and financial institutions - large to small - to overcome industry challenges. ZScore is a full-scale AI-driven credit scorecard system for lending institutions that spans the entire credit lifecycle. Equipped with an intuitive user interface and robust scorecard development capabilities, ZScore rapidly develops higher accuracy credit scorecards by using advanced Machine Learning (ML) algorithms that utilise historical traditional and alternate data to automatically build, validate, and deploy real-time, high-performing risk models.
With ZScore, financial institutions have better visibility over potential borrowers' credit capacity which consequently and indirectly, lead to higher financial inclusion. The World Bank Group considers financial inclusion a key enabler to reduce extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. According to the latest Global Findex database , 1.7 billion adults worldwide are unbanked, meaning they do not participate in any basic financial products or services.
Mahendran Balachandran, Partner at Accel, shared, “The Finbots.AI team brings decades of collective experience in financial services and technology, and we see great potential and promise in their solution - ZScore - as it strives to remedy and bridge the limitations of legacy credit systems. We, at Accel, are delighted to be a part of Finbot.AI’s growth as they propel forward to enhance financial services by leveraging AI technology to serve the entire community - ranging from the large banks to the small lenders. We see massive potential in this region and FinTech as a vertical.”
Finbots.AI currently has offices in key global hubs - Singapore, India (Hyderabad) and the United Arab Emirates (Dubai). India drives all of the global development and support for Finbots.AI which has its corporate headquarters in Singapore and a regional head office in Dubai. The firm has ambitions to continue increasing its headcount to a total of 50 by the end of 2022 and expanding its footprint into the rest of Asia.