SUMMARY
Angel investors Rajan Anandan, Dilip Khandelwal, and Amrish Rau also participated in the round
The company plans to use the fresh funds to expand its product portfolio
Alok Goyal, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, will be joining the board of Signzy as part of the deal
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Bengaluru-based fintech company Signzy has reportedly raised $3.36 Mn (INR 24 Cr) in Series A funding round led by Stellaris Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital, along with other investors.
Angel investors including Rajan Anandan from Google, Dilip Khandelwal from SAP Labs India, and Amrish Rau from PayU India also participated in the funding round.
The company plans to use the fresh funds to expand its product portfolio, strengthen its technology stack, and expand overseas. Alok Goyal, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, will be joining the board of Signzy as part of the deal.
Founded in 2015 by Ankit Ratan, Ankur Pandey, and Arpit Ratan, Signzy currently operates from both Bengaluru and Mumbai. It uses AI and Blockchain to provide smart e-verification and risk prediction and aims to simplify and secure digital regulatory processes. Its applications are in banking, insurance, mutual fund, payments, and cryptocurrency.
Signzy currently offers a digital onboarding solution for banks, NBFCs, and other financial institutions. Signzy uses technology to reduce fraud risk and make compliance and onboarding processes at financial institutions safe and seamless.
Signzy uses a combination of AI and blockchain to ensure that digital compliance is convenient and secure. Signzy’s proprietary tech platform simplifies the KYC process, runs background checks on customers, detects fraud, mitigates risks, and provides contract management systems.
Signzy is working with over 50 financial institutions in India across banks, asset management companies, NBFCs, insurance companies, wallets and payment service providers. Some of the prominent players that Signzy has partnered with include large banks like SBI and ICICI, as well as new age players like PayU and Mswipe.
“As world transitions to Web 3.0, we are building a new trust protocol that uses Artificial Intelligence to bring human-like fraud detection capabilities and uses Blockchain to secure document and consent, instead of signature and seals. All this with a few clicks of your mobile camera. This provides a financial consumer experience that is frictionless, secure and compliant.” said Ankit Ratan, CEO and co-founder, Signzy explaining the current focus of the company.
At present, the company is focussed on the onboarding processes, including identity validation using machine learning technology, forensic analysis of documents, as well as cross-verification on multiple databases for individuals and SMEs.
The company had earlier raised $600K in a funding round led by K-Start, Kalaari Capital’s seed initiative programme in May 2018. Signzy was also the part of Google Launchpad Accelerator’s first batch in India as announced in August 2018.
ICICI bank via its Innovation Centres has also partnered with Signzy to use its digital onboarding solution.
New Age Tech: The Key To Digital Compliance
The Indian government identifies the growing potential of new age technologies, this includes Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and more, as it allocated over $480 Mn under the government’s Digital India initiative in Union Budget 2018.
In one of the use cases for AI and blockchain, Mumbai-based Elemential enables blockchain middleware for the enterprise. While the founders Raunaq Vaisoha, Anil Dukkipatty, Sahil Kathpal and Aaryaman Vir Shah dub Elemential as the WordPress of the blockchain space, Elemential products are sector agnostic and are being used to create a KYC utility by National Stock Exchange, enable instant allotment for asset registries, manage royalty payments for media licenses.
Most recently, IT solution provider NIIT Technologies launched Chain-m, a blockchain-based solution for airlines that aims to make transactions more simplified when buying air tickets.
At the same time, Government think-tank Niti Aayog has hired US-based tech giant Oracle Corporation to implement a pilot project to put the entire stock of medicines made in India on the blockchain with an aim to combat fake and spurious drugs. Niti Aayog is also planning to adopt artificial intelligence in the sectors of healthcare, agriculture, education, infrastructure, and transportation.
In a recent study by Accenture, it was revealed that AI could add $957 Bn to the Indian economy or increase the country’s income by 15% by 2035.
As players like Signzy enable digital compliances to make digital access and reliance easy for the users, investor attention is a major plus for the company as it grows niche in the booming sector.
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