AI Startup Roundup: AI-powered Open Banking Firm Snags $600M

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Funding blitz

Startup: Abound (formerly Fintern) - U.K.-based fintech developing an AI-powered open-banking platform to expand access to affordable loans.

Abound uses machine learning and open-banking data to determine loan suitability for direct-to-consumer credit.

Latest funding: $600 million - A mixture of debt and equity funding.

Investor breakdown: Debt - Citi and Waterfall Asset Management. Equity - GSR Ventures, Hambro Perks, K3 Ventures

Funding plans: Currently based in the U.K., Abound is eyeing an expansion into Europe.

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Startup: Typeface - Newly emerged from stealth, Typeface is developing generative AI applications for enterprise content creation.

The San Francisco-based company’s product is built for use across the complete lifecycle of content development in all company departments, including marketing, customer support and HR, among others.

Former CTO of Adobe, Abhay Parasnis leads Typeface.

Latest funding: $65 million

Notable investors: GV (Google Ventures), M12 (Microsoft's Venture Fund)

Other investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures

Funding plans: Typeface is already looking to partner with enterprises. Its solution is currently only available for select customers. A waitlist is now open.

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Startup: Robin AI - a U.K.-based startup developing generative AI tech for the legal industry.

Robin’s machine learning models are trained on data from legal documents and are designed to draft contracts faster while reducing costs.

Its ‘SaaS + services’ business model sees its tech combined with a ‘lawyer-in-the-loop.’ The likes of eBay, Pepsi, UBS and PwC are counted among its customers.

Latest funding: $10.5 million, series A

Lead investor: Plural

Other investors: Episode 1, Monzo founder Tom Blomfield, Bridgepoint, Apollo, Barings

Funding plans: Robin will use the capital to build out its generative AI tech in a bid to reduce legal costs and make legal tasks simpler.

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Startup: Colossyan - London-based generative AI startup. The company builds AI tools for video production and localization.

Its Colossyan Creator product is a text-to-video solution for learning and development professionals. Users can create digital avatars, with the likes of Procter & Gamble and Hewlett-Packard among its partners.

[video]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhZo676U5QU

Latest funding: $5 million, series A

Lead investor: LAUNCHub Ventures

Other investors: Emerge Education,Day One Capital, Oktogon Ventures, APX

Funding plans: The funds will be used to grow its engineering and AI research teams. Colossyan also plans to expand its commercial functions in London and New York.

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Startup: Autobound - Startup using generative AI to create personalized sales emails.

Latest funding: $4 million

Lead investor: Dundee VC

Other investors: AIX Ventures, USC Marshall Venture Fund, You.com CEO Richard Socher, ZoomInfo CEO Henry Schuck

Funding plans: Autobound plans on using the funding to accelerate product development and to scale marketing, design and machine learning functions.

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Startup: Glowstick - Toronto-based startup developing a feedback management platform designed to analyze recorded customer video calls.

Latest funding: $1.3 million, pre-seed funding

Lead investor: Cleo Capital

Notable investors: ApSTAT fund - Yoshua Bengio, Jean-Francois Gagne and Nicolas Chapados

Other investors: Entrepreneur First, Saumil Mehta, general manager at Square, Ramen Ventures and angel investor Mike Janzen

Funding plans: Undisclosed