Fintech AI Platform Senso.ai Raises $1.5M CAD in Seed Funding

Senso.ai brings next generation artificial intelligence to the financial services industry

TORONTO, May 21, 2019 /CNW/ - Today at Collision Conference, Senso.ai, a leading machine learning and predictive AI provider announced the close of its $1.5 million seed funding round led by BreakawayGrowth, a Silicon Valley venture capital fund, alongside NEXT Canada and Techstars. Senso.ai is pioneering vertical-specific data pipelines and AI products to further create value within the Financial Services industry in Canada, and expand into the U.S. market.

"Large organizations around the world are attempting to collaborate with product-centric startups to embed innovation across their organizations," said Saroop Bharwani, Co-Founder and CEO, Senso.ai. "By securing funding from some of the most experienced VCs and experts in the industry, we can accelerate our ability to innovate and deliver unique solutions to enable our customers to enhance their AI and machine learning capabilities with unprecedented bottom line results."

Since graduating from the inaugural cohort of NextAI in 2017, and Techstars in 2018, Senso.ai has grown its customer and partner base to include some of Canada's well renowned financial institutions, most notably Royal Bank of Canada, a founding partner and early champion of the NextAI model. During this time, the company has also launched several new service offerings, including their predictive credit portfolio monitoring solution, which makes it easy for large organizations to embed operational intelligence into existing workflows to improve consumer experience and credit portfolio profitability.

"We were inspired by the Senso.ai team's ambition and the depth of their solution, and we knew we could help them grow even faster," said Chris Albinson, Co-Founder of C100 and BreakawayGrowth. "Our long-standing relationship with RBC and many other enterprises in the financial services industry globally is accelerating Senso.ai's growth."

Bridging the gap between nimble startup technology and large-scale corporate power, Senso.ai provides financial institutions with a cloud-based infrastructure to generate predictive insights about consumer portfolios which continuously improve over time. Their technology is being leveraged by financial institutions across the Canadian market, including RBC.

"RBC has been investing in the AI innovation ecosystem aggressively for years," said Neil McLaughlin Group Head, Personal and Commercial Banking at RBC. "Our relationship with Senso.ai is another example of how we're committed to investing in Canada's startup ecosystem to the benefit of Canada and our shareholders".

Senso.ai uses the power of AI to enhance consumer portfolio profitability. The team specializes in building robust vertical-specific data pipelines to seamlessly deploy predictive models which continually improve over time, and enable enhanced treatment strategies for both online and offline consumer touchpoints.

Senso chose Breakaway Growth Fund as their lead because the firm's partners have deep relationships and experience in SAAS, no/low code, and enterprise platforms which can help the company accelerate its global growth plans. Breakaway Growth Fund is co-led by Chris Albinson and Paul Heydon. Albinson is the co-founder of both The C100 and BreakawayGrowth.  He has taken two companies public as an operator and 12 as an investor. He is currently a Director of Senso, Careerlist, Chairman of the board at NinthDecimal, and actively supports the teams of Pinterest, DocuSign, & Turo where he also led investments.

About Senso.ai
Senso.ai is a Toronto-based technology company that has developed vertical-specific data pipelines and AI products that cater to optimizing both consumer experience and profitability in the Financial Services industry. Founded in 2017 by a team of highly experienced data engineers with deep roots in AI, Senso.ai is backed by Silicon Valley leaders and has graduated from NextAI, a highly selective incubator for promising AI companies, managed by NEXT Canada, and Techstars, the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed.

About NEXT Canada
NEXT Canada is a national, non-profit organization that develops exceptional talent to create world-class ventures and propel technology adoption. Founded in 2010 as The Next 36 by a group of pioneering business leaders and academics, NEXT Canada is today a leader in the delivery of cutting-edge programming designed to foster lifelong entrepreneurship in three streams: NextAI, Next 36 and Next Founders. NextAI is a startup accelerator for AI-enabled ventures, delivered in Toronto and Montreal.

About Breakaway Growth Fund
Breakaway Growth Fund ("BGF") is a venture capital firm that invests in and supports bold founders helping them throughout the startup journey to global dominance. BGF's leadership team has decades of experience leading and investing in capital-efficient growth startups that have created over $50 billion in shareholder value including investments in DocuSign, Juniper Networks, Pinterest, Supercell, Turo, and Unity Technologies. 

SOURCE Senso.ai

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