- Canadian AI tech startup Symend has raised $52 million in funding from Inovia Capital, alongside Ignition Partners, Impression Ventures, BDC Capital's Women in Technology Fund, and Mistral Venture Partners.
- The company uses its AI and behavioral science to help identify and support at-risk customers for clients in major financial institutions and telecoms firms.
- "What we are doing is now more important than ever, our clients want to preserve customer value but it's now an essential service to do that," Symend cofounder and CEO Hanif Joshaghani told Business Insider in an interview. "Consumers need support and the number of at risk customers is going to grow due to this crisis."
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Canadian AI tech startup Symend has raised $52 million in funding from Inovia Capital, alongside Ignition Partners, Impression Ventures, BDC Capital's Women in Technology Fund, Mistral Venture Partners.
The company says it uses AI and behavioral science to help identify and support customers who might struggle to keep up with payments, on behalf of businesses such as telecoms and financial institutions. The idea is to flag these customers early so firms can extend credit or take other measures to help.
"Consumers need support and the number of at-risk customers is going to grow due to this crisis," said Symend cofounder and CEO Hanif Joshaghani.
Symend's research has concluded that customers don't want to be "talked at," said cofounder Tiffany Kaminsky. The company's aim is to reduce the use of third-party "predatory" collection agencies.
Symend, founded in 2016, claims to have helped over 10 million at-risk customers to date through its platform and is on track to help 100 million by the end of 2020. The funding consists of $47 million in Series B venture capital plus $5 million in financing from Silicon Valley Bank. The company had only raised $1.2 million prior to this round, per Crunchbase.
The Calgary-based startup launched the funding round in February and completed the deal in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. "We are very blessed that investors are in this for the right reason," Joshaghani said. "When things were bad with COVID they closed the deal on the same terms on principle."
The fresh capital will be used to help the company continue its expansion with the startup's headcount expected to grow to around 200 by the end of the year, from around 100 currently. Despite being remote for a long period of time the company has been growing quickly with headcount growing from 45 at the end of 2019 to effectively double by May.
"The addressable market is getting bigger, there are now subscription models across everything you buy," Joshaghani added. "From consumer finance, utilities, and telcos, and that trend will continue and expand, everything you consume you could have a subscription on."
You can check out Symend's pitch deck below:
