Fintech
Lloyds and Nationwide invest in Scottish fintech AI Aveni
Lloyds Banking Group and Nationwide have joined an £11m Series A funding round in Scottish artificial intelligence fintech Aveni.
The investment is led by Puma Private Equity with additional participation from Par Equity.
Aveni creates AI products specifically designed to streamline workflows in the financial services industry by analyzing documents and meetings across a range of operational functions, with a focus on financial advisory services and consumer compliance.
The cash injection will help fund the development of a new product, FinLLM, a large-scale language model created specifically for the financial sector in partnership with Lloyds and Nationwide.
Joseph Twigg, CEO of Aveni, explains: “The financial services industry doesn’t need AI models that can quote Shakespeare, it needs AI models that offer transparency, trust and, most importantly, fairness. The way to achieve this is to develop small, highly tuned language models, trained on financial services data, vetted by financial services experts for specific financial services use cases.
“FinLLM’s goal is to set a new standard for the controlled, responsible and ethical adoption of generative AI, outperforming all other generic models in our selected financial services use cases.”
Robin Scher, head of fintech investment at Lloyds Banking Group, says the development programme offers a “massive opportunity” for the financial services industry by streamlining operations and improving customer experience.
“We look forward to supporting Aveni’s growth as we invest in their vision of developing FinLLM together with partners. Our collaboration aims to establish Aveni as a forerunner in AI adoption in the industry, while maintaining a focus on responsible use and customer centricity,” he said.