London-based Xapien, a platform that automates online research using Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, announced on Wednesday, April 12, that it has secured £4.5M (approximately €5.1M) led by YFM Equity Partners and backed by D2 Fund, concluding total Seed funding of £6M.
The company uses AI to offer executive-level reports on any individual or organisation anywhere in the globe in minutes. Every piece of data is completely sourced, enabling informed decision-making that can be verified.
“Know who you are doing business with”
Founded by deep technology experts with decades of experience in intelligence and financial crime, Xapien uses AI and natural language processing to provide on-demand research for companies looking to properly understand their third parties.
The company’s SaaS platform allows people to know who they are doing business with, which was previously only available to large corporations.
Xapien’s CEO Chris Green says, “Every year, billions of dollars are wasted on laborious and time-consuming background research. Firms seeking to do international business are facing a perfect storm.”
“Emerging ESG considerations present complicated and nuanced risks. There is a continuing explosion in publicly available information, and ever-increasing regulation. This creates an increasing need for organisations to really ‘know’ their third parties. This includes their customers, suppliers, donors, applicants and investors.”
“Put simply, firms can no longer afford to just ask ‘can we’ be in business with someone. They must also ask ‘should we’?”
“Traditional screening tools cannot answer this nuanced question. A typical KYC/AML search is a factual check of recorded data in structured databases. To really ‘know’ a third party, deep contextual background research is required.”
“Current methods will not scale, but there is a better way.”
The technology gives a competitive advantage when utilised for client onboarding, investment due diligence, compliance, reputational and integrity due diligence, donor prospect research, and other purposes.
Capital utilisation
Xapien claims it will use the money to accelerate product development and go-to-market, expand into new verticals. and extend its US footprint.
Chris Green says, “YFM and D2 Fund really understand the market that we are serving and share our vision to transform it using AI and deep technology.”
“This investment will accelerate our product roadmap, deepen our proprietary application of Large Language Models, enhance our Identity Resolution Engine and turbo-charge our growth in sectors where we are experiencing strong demand, including legal, fintech, insurance, private equity, and philanthropy.”
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