With a wealth of financial services experience and world-leading Natural Language Processing (NLP) expertise, University of Edinburgh startup Aveni is creating cutting-edge AI solutions that are built specifically for the financial services industry.
Award-winning FinTech company Aveni is spearheading the financial services (FS) productivity revolution by fusing advanced AI with human ingenuity. The startup company’s solutions are accelerating FS workflows by providing automated admin support and quality assurance, analysing customer interactions, and providing actionable insights.
Edinburgh Innovations, the University of Edinburgh’s
commercialisation service, has supported Aveni from the very start,
helping founders, Joseph Twigg, Executive MBA graduate and School of
Informatics Senior Research Fellow Dr Lexi Birch, to develop the initial
idea and providing support and expertise throughout the company
formation process.
Old College Capital
(OCC), the University’s in-house investment fund, invested in the
company’s first pre-seed round in 2020 and twice more as the company
piloted its early software with major banks and wealth managers. OCC has
been actively involved with the company’s development throughout,
including at the board level and via regular catchups with the investor
group and founders.
In 2024 the company announced an £11m Series A fundraising round led by Puma Private Equity, which will be used to drive business growth and support the development of FinLLM, an industry-aligned Large Language Model. Based at Edinburgh Futures Institute, the FinLLM team is led by Dr Birch and aims to set the standard for transparent, responsible and ethical adoption of Generative AI across UK financial services.
Today, Aveni’s industry-leading AI innovations are transforming financial workflow productivity and compliance. It is enabling greater efficiencies and accuracy for firms to better manage the advice journey, increase oversight of risk analysis, data collection and quality assurance processes. Already trusted by some of the biggest brands in the industry, including Lloyds Banking Group and Nationwide, Aveni is powering the next generation of financial services.
