Eigen Technologies, a U.K. startup that offers natural language processing (NLP) technology to help companies extract meaningful data from documents, has closed a $42 million series B round of funding. This includes a fresh $5 million tranche from Dutch finance giant ING, following an initial $37 million raise back in November.
Additionally, Eigen and ING announced a deeper working partnership to establish “best-in-class NLP models” that are fully geared toward data extraction in the financial industry.
“This partnership will allow both companies to work closer together when implementing use cases through data and process analysis, so as to accelerate Eigen’s advantage in NLP, as well as ING’s digital transformation,” said ING Ventures CEO Benoît Legrand.
Unstructured data
Founded out of London in 2014, Eigen is a machine learning (ML) company that makes it easier for clients working in financial, legal, and similar sectors to unlock insights and knowledge from their unstructured data, which may be stored in disparate document types in multiple locations. Eigen’s algorithms scan texts to identify patterns and provide answers to specific questions.
For example, a company could use Eigen to find out whether interest on loans contained within a range of documents is based on LIBOR — an interest rate benchmark that is being phased out in 2021. Eigen can be deployed on premises or in the cloud, and its tools integrate with existing internal systems.
While typical AI and machine learning systems need to be trained on large data sets, Eigen promises to learn from just a handful of client examples. Crucially, it doesn’t rely on document-specific models, instead working across the board. It can be applied to contracts to ensure they comply with regulations, spot patterns that may indicate fraudulent activity, reduce the time it takes to carry out due diligence, and more.
Above: Eigen Technologies uses natural language processing to parse hoards of documents.
Eigen already claims some major clients, including Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and its latest strategic backer, ING.
“Eigen offers a strategic capability in the intelligent operations domain, deployed in use cases across retail, as well as wholesale banking,” Legrand said.
As one of the biggest banks in the world, ING should help expedite the uptake of machine learning in the financial services sector. Indeed, ING is already using Eigen’s NLP in specific areas, such as loan operations and LIBOR replacement. As part of their new partnership, this effort will be expanded to areas such as SME banking and trade finance.
Eigen, which was named one of CB Insights’ top 100 AI companies in the world, has now raised north of $60 million since its inception.
Author: Paul Sawers.
Source: Venturebeat
