Fintech secures 'one of largest Series A investments in a Scottish business this year'

Aveni, which specialises in natural language processing that analyses regulated companies’ customer interactions such as call recordings and other digital communications, said the investment is led by London-based Puma Private Equity with participation from Edinburgh’s Par Equity and building society Nationwide as well as Lloyds.

The fundraising fintech firm, which is chaired by financial services veteran Colin Clark, says it has secured some of the UK’s top financial services firms as customers, seeing “significant” business growth over the past two years through existing compliance and productivity products Aveni Detect and Aveni Assist.

It added that the new investment (which comes after it raised nearly £3m in 2022) will enable it to strengthen its presence across the financial services sector, and introduce “revolutionary” technology through the creation of FinLLM, a financial services specific large language model being developed with new investors Lloyds and Nationwide.

FinLLM is aiming to set the standard for the transparent, responsible, and ethical adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) across UK financial services, and the team developing the offering will, post investment, be based at the pioneering Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Aveni chief executive Joseph Twigg said: “The financial services industry does not need AI models that can quote Shakespeare, it needs AI models that deliver transparency, trust, and – above all – correctness. The way to achieve this is to develop small, highly tuned language models, trained on financial services data, reviewed by financial services experts for specific financial services use cases.

“Generative AI represents the most significant technological evolution of our generation, and we’re in the nascent stages of adoption. This presents a significant opportunity for Aveni and our partners. The objective with FinLLM is to set a new standard for the controlled, responsible, and ethical adoption of generative AI, outperforming all other generic models across our selected financial service use cases.”

Robin Scher, head of fintech investments at Lloyds, said: “Aveni’s cutting-edge AI solutions offer a huge opportunity for the financial services industry, streamlining operations and elevating the customer experience. We are keen to support Aveni’s growth as we invest in their vision to develop the FinLLM alongside partners. Our collaboration aims to establish Aveni as a frontrunner of the industry’s adoption of AI, whilst maintaining a focus on responsible usage and customer-centricity.”

Samuel White, venture partner at Nationwide’s NBS Ventures, commented: “NBS Ventures has been closely monitoring Aveni for some time, and we’re excited to invest in the team. The investment will enable Nationwide to work closely with world-leading experts to responsibly and ethically utilise generative AI to deliver better service and outcomes for our members.”

Also commenting was Ben Leslie, investment director at Puma Private Equity, who said: “With Scotland’s position as a prominent tech hub on the rise and with the increased regulatory burden on financial services businesses, we believe that Aveni is in a unique position to solve key challenges faced by the sector.”