OnFinance AI raises $1.05 Million in an oversubscribed Seed Funding Round led by Silverneedle Ventures & IAN
07 November 2023, National: OnFinance.ai, founded by a couple of BITS Pilani graduates, a cutting-edge provider of Generative AI SaaS solutions for the financial industry, announced today that it has raised a $1.05 million seed funding round led by Silverneedle Ventures and IAN. The funding round also saw participation from notable investors, including LetsVenture Fund, SSV Fund, and Kunal Shah (CRED), along with some marquee angels. OnFinance.ai will be using the money to expand its engineering team and to scale its solution globally, especially in the US.
OnFinance.ai’s unique offering, powered by its financial Large Language Model (LLM) named NeoGPT, delivers AI co-pilots for research analysis, relationship management, sales, and customer success teams within banking institutions, asset management companies (AMCs), and wealth management firms. The company’s innovative technology enhances the productivity of these teams, streamlining complex internal processes and making data-driven decision-making more efficient.
The global financial sector currently spends $2.5 billion annually to transition its processes toward becoming data-driven and AI-centric. This expenditure is expected to increase by 22% year-on-year for the next decade. One of the primary challenges faced by financial institutions is the extended turnaround time associated with AI-based processes, such as financial reporting, rating adjustments, portfolio management, disclosures, customer profiling, and context-aware customer interaction.
OnFinance.ai’s in-house LLM, NeoGPT, addresses these challenges by seamlessly integrating various data sources to provide rapid, accurate financial insights. NeoGPT replaces multiple outdated AI models, allowing clients to adopt it without altering their existing tools, thus simplifying and enhancing financial operations.
The funds raised will be used to expand OnFinance.ai’s engineering team and facilitate global scalability, particularly in the United States. Currently comprising eight full-time team members, including co-founders Anuj Srivastava and Priyesh Srivastava, the company is actively planning to extend its services to banks and wealth management firms based in the US and the UK, owing to the significant interest and demand for their NeoGPT AI Co-pilots in these regions.
Anuj Srivastava, CEO and co-founder of OnFinance.ai commented on the funding round, “Generative AI isn’t just innovative; it’s revolutionary, offering banks and wealth management firms a streamlined approach to their most complex internal processes. Our product solves exactly this; NeoGPT is like having a smart assistant that not only simplifies data but also helps internal teams pave the way for smarter and more efficient decision making.”
Priyesh Srivastava, CTO and co-founder of OnFinance.ai added, “For those curious about the recent surge in AI adoption, it’s largely due to the fact that Large Language Models (LLMs) now achieve nearly 80% of the accuracy of supervised models, even without specific training (known as 0-shot learning). This makes deploying new solutions 100x cheaper and more flexible, providing immediate utility from day 1. This means having a big AI product catalogue is no longer a MOAT for legacy players.”
“We are in one of the most interesting times in terms of applications of AI, and ChatGPT has opened doors to the magic of LLMs for a much larger audience. The way forward will have 2 flavours – large LLMs targeting specific industries or smaller brains working over proven LLMs to get the work done. OnFinance ticks all the right boxes for us – a strong motivated founding team keen to stay abreast of the curve, a technology that can give us handsome returns and a problem that is already massive. NeoGPT already boasts of some marquee customers and we believe this would ensure they become better with rich data to fine-tune the models.” said Mr Ajay Jain, Founder & Managing Partner, Silverneedle Ventures
Padmaja Ruparel, Co-Founder and founding Partner, IAN said “Generative AI is poised to revolutionize the financial industry, and OnFinance.ai’s NeoGPT offers a game-changing approach to streamlining complex internal processes for banks and wealth management firms. NeoGPT is not just a technology; it’s a strategic solution that will lead the sector into an era of greater efficiency and data-driven decision-making. Their innovative approach is well-aligned with the evolving landscape of the financial industry, and we believe that this investment will significantly contribute to reshaping how the sector operates. IAN is very keen to support this innovation with both investment and mentoring/helping the company grow quickly.”
Niraj Saran, A Tech Veteran from the Bay Area stated “Vertical-specific GenAI and LLMs are fundamentally disruptive by being able to quickly and cheaply discover nuggets of insights and improve efficiency by orders of magnitude. OnFinance’s NeoGPT and chain-of-thought report workflows benefit significantly from their ever-increasing contextually mined financial content for their Natural Language Processing (NLP) stack and Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) to continually improve the model. Being alums of the same college forms a special bond to be able to support and guide them along their journey.”
OnFinance.ai’s innovative approach to leveraging Generative AI in the financial sector has garnered strong support from investors, positioning the company for further growth and success. The investment will help accelerate the development and deployment of NeoGPT and expand its presence in the global financial ecosystem.
