London-based Sikoia has raised $2.3 million in a pre-seed round. Surveying the increasingly fragmented and often confusing fintech service provider landscape, Sikoia’s mission is to help companies make better use of the data already available to them. By unifying third-party data and APIs and combining automated workflows with a series of detailed analytics, Sikoia promises faster decision-making capabilities, increased efficiency, and reduced regulatory risk.
Often, the reason behind the founding of a startup is to solve a problem. Nine times out of ten, this solution is a direct response to an issue experienced by one of the founders. So when SoftBank Vision Fund investor Alexis Rog, Head of Data and Analytics Engineering at JP Morgan Equities’ business Stephen Simmons, former Head of Proposition at Experian Alastair Bulger, and open banking consultant Harry Singh all put their heads together, it’s a fair statement to make that they’ve seen things from the inside out, and want to build a better mousetrap for us all.
“Thousands of APIs are opening siloed data sources globally at a rapid pace, but the explosion in the number of touchpoints has created significant complexity, and it’s increasingly difficult to integrate this dynamic ecosystem in existing back-end systems and processes. We couldn’t find a comprehensive solution that didn’t require complex manual configuration and lengthy integration. So we decided to build it,” commented CEO Rog.
Beginning with the consumer and small business lending sector, Sikoia is helping these players make better credit decisions and reduce regulatory risk by homogenising customer data and getting a better grasp over the APIs involved in the process.
Still in pre-seed stage, Sikoia has integrations with over 20 open banking, credit scoring, KYC, AML, marketplaces, third-party databases, and alternative data sources. The $2.3 million raise is expected to further product development and expand the functionalities of the platform ahead of the public launch later this year.
Berlin's Earlybird led the round, with London's Seedcamp following on. Additionally, notable angel investors including Raffael Johnen, CEO of Auxmoney, Fabian Weseman, CFO of Wefox, and Charlie Delingpole, CEO of ComplyAdvantage also participated.
Earlybird’s Dr. Christian Nagel commented, “We strongly believe that Sikoia will solve the immense pain point of the financial industry to cope with an increasing number of data sources. Data silos, multiple data formats, and poor data quality lead to highly inefficient processes today.”
Photo: Charles Sturge
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments