AI & Finance™ | News for the Week Ending 2/14/25

Algebrik AI Inc., a Delaware-incorporated company headquartered in New York City, pioneering the world’s 1st cloud-native, AI-powered, digital-era Loan Origination Platform (LOS), today announced a strategic partnership with Carleton, Inc., a leader in financial calculation and compliance solutions. This collaboration integrates Carleton’s robust payment calculation APIs into Algebrik’s cutting edge LOS platform, setting a new standard for accuracy, compliance, and operational efficiency in consumer lending. 

This partnership reflects Algebrik’s commitment to delivering a cloud-native, AI-powered, digital-era consumer lending platform that seamlessly supports direct and indirect lending. The collaboration ensures compliance across 1,000+ calculation methods, including credit insurance, disability, and GAP coverage, while adapting to lender-specific rules. 

Algebrik AI and Carleton’s collaboration signals a shared commitment to innovation in financial services. By combining Carleton’s state-of-the-art APIs with Algebrik’s cloud & AI-native architecture, the platform provides lenders with dynamic tools for product configuration, seamless borrower experiences, and automated compliance. This integration is designed to scale efficiently, allowing lenders to introduce new products with minimal effort while ensuring accuracy and compliance at every step of the lending journey. 

Auquan, the market leader in generative AI for deep work in financial services, today announced the launch of its Sustainability Agent, the first and only AI agent purpose-built to liberate sustainability teams from tedious and time-consuming manual work. One-quarter of the top 25 global financial services firms trust Auquan to transform how they gather and analyze intelligence for critical and timely decisions and realize radically enhanced productivity gains, research coverage, and speed to insight. 

Every day, sustainability professionals in finance spend countless hours manually researching sustainability performance and risks, processing unstructured data into relevant insights, and writing reports instead of doing what first attracted them to the field. Auquan’s Sustainability Agent changes this by autonomously completing entire workflows — from company screening and monitoring to generating framework-aligned reports and near real-time alerts — empowering teams to focus on driving sustainable value creation and enhancing stakeholder engagement. 

Auquan’s customers realize immediate value through turnkey solutions while supporting custom implementations for unique research and reporting requirements. Teams begin saving hours of manual work within the first days of deployment. Auquan’s Sustainability Agent is available immediately through direct purchase or via the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.  

Brightwave, the leading AI-powered research and diligence platform for financial professionals, today announced a partnership with Quartr, the top provider of earnings call data and investor relations materials. The integration enables investment teams to rapidly analyze public market data alongside private deal documents, helping them make faster, better-informed decisions while maintaining rigorous standards. 

The partnership addresses a critical pain point for financial analysts who currently spend hours manually reviewing SEC filings, earnings call transcripts, sell-side analysis, investment memos, expert network calls, and the dozens of other types of content that inform an investment thesis. Brightwave’s platform now automatically synthesizes Quartr’s extensive database of first-party company materials alongside private deal documents, surfacing key insights while maintaining complete source verification. 

Carefull, the award-winning financial safety service built to protect credit union members from elder fraud, the latest scams, and money mistakes, is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Merck Employees Federal Credit Union (MEFCU). As fraud reaches unprecedented levels, MEFCU is taking action to enhance member experience and security by offering Carefull’s unique suite of proactive account monitoring, identity protection, and issue resolution services to all members, their parents, and even next-generation caregivers. 

With scams becoming more sophisticated and financial crimes specifically targeting older members, credit unions are facing increasing pressure to ensure their members remain secure. Many members—particularly older adults—do not regularly check their accounts, leaving them vulnerable to unnoticed fraud and unauthorized transactions. Carefull’s 24/7 account monitoring, alerts, and expert support give MEFCU members an additional layer of security and peace of mind. 

This collaboration underscores MEFCU’s commitment to safeguarding its members, aligning with the credit union philosophy of “people helping people.” Beyond fraud prevention, MEFCU sees Carefull as an opportunity to enhance the overall member experience, helping credit unions deepen trust and strengthen member relationships. 

CLARA Analytics (“CLARA”), a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for insurance claims optimization, today announced that Merchants Insurance Group has adopted Claims DocIntel Pro and CLARA Triage within its auto liability line of business. These products will be deployed next year for workers’ compensation and general liability as well. The decision to incorporate CLARA’s AI-based offerings comes as insurance companies face a range of unprecedented challenges accompanied by intense pressure to protect and compensate affected individuals. To successfully handle a significant increase in high-severity claims, Merchants is now leveraging CLARA’s technology to provide its team with key insights that can more accurately determine claim costs and boost operational efficiency, effectively accelerating claim processing. 

Merchants has been providing quality property and casualty insurance protection to policyholders for more than 100 years. Today, the company specializes in commercial lines and sells exclusively through a network of over 1,000 independent insurance agents in its business territories in Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Merchants’ goals are to develop and deliver outstanding products, respond to customer requests, and resolve claims quickly and accurately. With a commitment to new technologies and online capabilities, Merchants strategically aligned with CLARA in its mission to streamline business processes and enhance efficiency for agents and policyholders. 

Merchants claims professionals will use CLARA Claims DocIntel Pro to seamlessly identify, index, transcribe and summarize claims documents. This includes the ability to instantly review medical records and legal demands with important data highlighted and summarized, which dramatically reduces adjusters’ time spent on these vital tasks. Additionally, adjusters will utilize CLARA Triage to focus on the right claims and prompts so that they can take specific actions to expedite claims processing. Through the sophisticated application of AI, Triage makes it easy for adjusters to better understand reserving requirements and proactively manage claims that need attention while streamlining others that likely won’t require additional intervention. 

In response to the rise in check fraud incidents across the country, CSI, a leading provider of end-to-end financial software and technology, today announced the launch of its proprietary check fraud detection solution for NuPoint® customers. Enabled by Mitek Systems, the solution equips bank tellers with real-time check fraud detection capabilities. Alternative deposit methods completed through all other channels are evaluated collectively overnight. 

Check fraud has surged dramatically in the past three years, with a reported 90% increase in check fraud-related suspicious activity from 2021 to 2023 and continued incidents throughout 2024. To counter this growing threat, CSI’s check fraud detection solution leverages Mitek’s growing consortium of financial institutions, which represents millions of consumers, to provide insights that improve check fraud detection rates and expedite review processes. The tool provides community banks with high-resolution image analysis across 24 scorable check attributes to instantly detect and interrupt potentially fraudulent transactions at the teller line. 

The new solution continuously learns through consortium sharing, offering fraud protection at various levels of complexity to potentially predict future changes. Analysts can compare multiple check attributes against profiles stored in a secure, cloud-hosted environment that employs end-to-end encryption and adheres to ISO 27001-certified security protocols, delivering a new level of security to community banks. 

Datalign Advisory (“Datalign”), an AI platform matching consumers with leading financial advisors, today announced Link Ventures invested $5 million in Datalign, bringing their total investment in Datalign to $9 million on a post-money valuation of $75 million. The capital enables Datalign to further accelerate the development of innovative AI and ML capabilities that promise to transform how financial advisors serve their clients. The investment follows a year of exceptional 300% growth, with Datalign referring nearly $40 billion in assets to Registered Investment Advisor (“RIA”) firms at the end of 2024, compared to $14.8 billion at the end of 2023. 

Link Ventures’ investment in Datalign marks a significant milestone in both companies’ trajectories. Link Ventures has consistently demonstrated an ability to identify and scale category-defining, transformative companies, as evidenced by early investments in CarGurus, EverQuote and DataSage (acquired by Vignette). Link Ventures has emerged as a leading force in AI investing, with its investments in Mercor and Liquid AI becoming two of their respective industry’s top five AI unicorns in the past year. Link sees similar unicorn potential in Datalign’s approach to reimagining the wealth management space and rapid path to profitability. 

Capitalizing on Link Ventures’ deep expertise in building market-defining companies, Datalign aims to aggressively scale its team of AI experts and has plans to release several AI-focused products in 2025 as the company continues to invest in industry-changing technology that redefines how people receive financial services. The company has already launched a number of AI Initiatives in the last six months, including: 

Fifteenth, a tax solution built to serve the unique needs of founders, investors, executives, and tech professionals with complex financial situations, announced it has raised $8.25 million in seed funding. Employees from tech innovators like Nvidia, Rippling, and Figma have saved $10-20k on average thanks to tailored tax strategies from Fifteenth. Others have saved as much as $100k from custom scenario modeling on the strategic sale of stock options. The round was led by A* and General Catalyst with participation from SV Angel and angel investors including Swapnil Jain (Co-Founder and CEO of Observe.AI), Ryan Eisenman (co-founder and CEO at Arch), and Akash Garg (advisor at Electric Capital). 

Fifteenth is normalizing April 15th for anyone navigating the complex financial reporting landscape of equity (ISOs, RSUs, NSOs), liquidity (IPOs, acquisitions), partnership income (K1s), stock trading, and more. Fifteenth’s world-class tax support is powered by cutting-edge AI solutions, customized scenario modeling, and one-click integrations with enterprise platforms like Workday and Rippling and fintech platforms like Robinhood, Wealthfront, and Carta. Fifteenth ensures coverage every step of the way with always-on support and unlimited, year-round tax advice starting at just $1,000 per year. 

Dahiya is a second-time founder with deep technical expertise honed through executive roles at Rippling, Flexport, X, and Meta. Ankur’s first company, RunX, simplified cloud infrastructure deployment for developers and was acquired by Rippling. Fifteenth co-founder and Chief Tax Officer Laura Moreno brings a wealth of experience navigating complex tax scenarios for high net-worth clients and tech professionals with years of leadership at PwC, a billion-dollar family office, and Carta, where she built and led the tax advisory team. 

FIS® (NYSE: FIS), a global leader in financial technology across the full money lifecycle, today announced the launch of FIS Revenue Insight, a predictive analytics solution designed to help businesses optimize collections. Through proprietary patented technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI), FIS Revenue Insight aims to deliver actionable insights into cash at risk, enabling companies to proactively identify risks, accelerate revenue and drive business growth. 

The FIS Revenue Insight solution is part of the FIS Automated Finance suite, which delivers data-driven receivables automation, payables automation and revenue optimization solutions for the office of the CFO in any industry, enabling the seamless flow of money in motion. 

Today’s finance leaders across industries face growing pressure to modernize their accounts receivable management. According to a recent survey,1 81% of businesses have experienced an increase in delayed payments, with 50% experiencing late payments from customers and 77% of AR teams falling behind on their metrics. Even the best finance departments face questions about which accounts will or will not pay, and who will self-correct or who will go into severe delinquency. 

Amerisure Insurance (Amerisure), a leading provider of commercial property and casualty insurance solutions for U.S.-based construction, manufacturing and healthcare businesses, and Guidewire (NYSE: GWRE) announced that Amerisure successfully deployed Guidewire PolicyCenter and Guidewire BillingCenter as its new systems for policy administration, underwriting, and billing management. The company implemented the products on Guidewire Cloud simultaneously beginning with its Workers’ Compensation line of business in all of the regions where it operates. Amerisure is currently implementing other lines of business such as commercial auto and loss sensitive (special risk). Guidewire PartnerConnect Consulting Global Premier member PwC was the lead partner on the implementation project. 

Amerisure migrated its on-premise installation of Guidewire ClaimCenter onto Guidewire Cloud in 2023. With the implementation of PolicyCenter and BillingCenter on Guidewire Cloud, the company is now a full Guidewire InsuranceSuite customer in production on Guidewire Cloud. 

In today’s competitive mortgage industry, lenders constantly seek innovative tools to streamline operations and deliver superior borrower experiences. Lender Toolkit continues to lead the charge with its solutions that redefine how lenders process and underwrite mortgage applications. Combining speed, accuracy, scalability, and cost-savings, Lender Toolkit’s products ensure consistency in decision-making while enhancing the overall borrower journey. 

Today, Lender Toolkit is thrilled to announce an exciting partnership with Ocrolus and the integration of Ocrolus’ advanced document analysis technology into its product line. This powerful enhancement addresses a critical need in the mortgage underwriting process—the ability to efficiently handle unstructured data from electronic, scanned or physical documents. 

Traditionally, Lender Toolkit’s products have relied on structured digital data from integrations with Encompass® by ICE Mortgage Technology® and other automated verification services. While this approach excels in leveraging machine-readable formats, the need for Ocrolus arose as lenders increasingly requested the ability to analyze a wide variety of document types, such as bank statements, pay stubs, and tax forms. AI Underwriter now bridges the gap with its Ocrolus integration, converting text from unstructured formats into machine-readable data, enabling seamless automation across all data sources. 

martini.ai, a leader in AI-driven credit analytics, today announced the launch of Agentic AI Company Research, a breakthrough solution that empowers businesses with comprehensive, real-time insights into individual companies’ credit profiles. By merging credit spread data with essential corporate information, this feature provides decision-makers — including those in private credit — with data-rich intelligence that highlights key trends, risks and opportunities. 

Against the backdrop of limited financial transparency, high default risk, and resource constraints — challenges that routinely plague private credit investors — Agentic AI Company Research offers a streamlined and scalable way to identify and monitor risk across a wide range of private companies. Notably, all martini.ai requires is the borrower’s name, and in just a few minutes, the platform delivers an independent signal on a company’s credit risk. 

Agentic AI Company Research is the latest addition to martini.ai’s expanding suite of credit analytics solutions, designed to help financial institutions, investment managers, and corporate decision-makers optimize their risk management practices — especially crucial for private credit investors who require more visibility into portfolio risks. 

Octus, formerly Reorg, the leading provider of global credit intelligence and data, today announces the appointment of Megan A. Jones as General Counsel and as a member of the company’s executive leadership team. Jones will lead the legal and compliance teams and oversee all legal and corporate governance matters at Octus. 

Joining Octus from FactSet (NYSE: FDS), an open data and software solutions provider to the global investment community, Jones has deep familiarity with financial services technology and market content. At FactSet, Jones served as deputy general counsel and corporate secretary. Her tenure also included eight months where she served as the company’s interim chief legal officer. Jones is a current board member of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC). Prior to joining FactSet, Jones was General Counsel of BISAM Group (bought by FactSet in March 2017). 

Pagaya Technologies LTD. (NASDAQ: PGY) (“Pagaya” or “the Company”), a global technology company delivering AI-driven product solutions for the financial ecosystem, today announced a new forward flow agreement with funds managed by Blue Owl Capital (“Blue Owl”) to purchase up to $2.4 billion in consumer loans through the Pagaya network over a 24-month period. 

Pagaya’s forward flow program, which allows the Company to fund loan originations in a capital efficient manner, continues to be a growing source of funding alongside Pagaya’s market-leading ABS program, which has raised more than $26 billion since inception. 

Quicklizard (TASE: QLRD), a leading AI-powered dynamic pricing platform for retailers and brands, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Riverwood Capital, one of the leading investment firms solely dedicated to technology growth and scalability. This strategic acquisition is set to supercharge Quicklizard’s research and development efforts, accelerating the evolution of its platform and reinforcing its position as the go-to pricing optimization platform for enterprises worldwide. 

The adoption of AI-powered pricing platforms among retailers is rapidly growing as businesses recognize the need for real-time price optimization to remain competitive. The global retail pricing software market, valued at approximately $12.38 billion in 2024, is projected to reach $23.62 billion by 2031 (Verified Market Research). This surge in adoption is driven by retailers’ need to enhance profitability and efficiency in increasingly dynamic markets. 

Quicklizard’s AI-driven pricing technology is trusted by leading global retailers and brands, including Sephora, John Lewis, and more. The platform helps businesses identify relevant competitors and avoid unnecessary price wars, forecast demand, optimize pricing while taking inventory into account, and utilize article segmentation to stay highly competitive while maintaining profitability. Quicklizard has consistently delivered tangible results for its clients, driving an 8% increase in revenue and a 3%-5% increase in profit. 

Sardine, the leading AI risk platform for fraud, compliance, and credit underwriting, today announced a $70 million Series C funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $145 million. The round was led by Activant Capital, with participation from new and existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Nyca Partners, Google Ventures, Geodesic Capital, Cross Creek Capital, Moody’s Analytics, Experian Ventures, and NAventures. 

In 2024, Sardine achieved 130% YoY ARR growth and nearly doubled its customer base. The company also surpassed 2.2 billion devices profiled, making the Sardine Network one of the largest and most up-to-date databases for combating financial crime. Today, more than 300 enterprises, including FIS, Ascensus, Deel, GoDaddy, and X, rely on Sardine to prevent fraud, stop money laundering, and streamline risk operations. 

Legacy fraud systems are imperfect, which is why human oversight can be critical. But the sheer volume of false positives forces risk teams at banks and fintechs to freeze accounts, restrict access to funds, and turn away good customers based on incomplete or inaccurate data. Without AI to reduce noise and surface real threats faster, teams struggle to keep up. 

Smarsh, the global leader in communications data and intelligence, today announced the appointment of David Brolsma as Chief Financial Officer. Brolsma will have an expanded leadership role at Smarsh and oversee global finance, accounting, corporate development, integrations, and internal operations. He will leverage his expertise in IPOs, M&A, international regulatory compliance, revenue efficiency, and operations to help guide the company through its next stage of growth. 

Brolsma’s appointment comes on the heels of recognition from Gartner as a leader in the Digital Communications Governance and Archiving Solutions Magic Quadrant and Smarsh’s 17th consecutive appearance on the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies list. With a strong communications compliance foundation and a cloud-native, AI-enabled platform, Smarsh is entering its next growth phase. This comes at a time when Smarsh customers in highly regulated industries, including 90% of the top global institutions, face rapid technological advancement and complex global regulatory requirements. In this challenging landscape, the Smarsh Platform empowers organizations to stay ahead by leveraging communications data to surface risk and critical business insights at scale. 

Brolsma has over 20 years of experience with both high-growth technology companies like WP Engine and Rackspace and established publicly traded multinationals, including Valero Energy and EY, leading international finance, revenue, and governance roles based in Europe and the U.S. Most recently, David served as CFO & SVP of WP Engine, Inc., a large-scale hosting service owned by private equity firm Silver Lake, where he led multiple technology acquisitions. Before WP Engine, Brolsma was Vice President & General Manager at Rackspace, Inc., the open cloud company, where he spearheaded the company’s successful IPO, as well as its global expansion strategy. Brolsma holds an MS in Accounting from the University of Texas at San Antonio. 

Snappy Kraken, the martech innovator powering simpler, smarter advisor marketing, today announced two platform enhancements designed to deliver AI-driven campaign automation and insights, streamline marketing activity and accelerate growth for both enterprises and individual advisors. Built for mid-market and enterprise firms, including registered investment advisors (RIAs), broker-dealers and independent marketing organizations (IMOs), the Enterprise Hub provides control over and visibility into their advisors’ marketing activities, leveraging AI-powered insights and analytics to optimize campaign management across large organizations. The refreshed Campaigns App, targeted toward individual advisors, streamlines campaign selection and creation while providing improved data analytics and reporting on campaign performance and contact activity. 

Following the release of Snappy Kraken Enterprise, a comprehensive marketing technology solution specifically designed for enterprises, the new Enterprise Hub offers large financial services organizations complete flexibility, control and robust data analytics over their advisors’ marketing activities. It streamlines marketing operations, compliance and reporting to drive scalable growth across large firms. 

Designed to meet the growing demand from medium to large advisory organizations for better visibility into advisor adoption, marketing performance and compliance management, the Enterprise Hub delivers key features tailored for firms with multiple advisors. 

SRA Watchtower, a leader in risk management technology, today announced the acquisition of Lumio Insight, a cloud-based data management and analytics provider. This strategic acquisition will enhance Watchtower by integrating Lumio Insight’s advanced data delivery and automated ingestion capabilities, providing transformative risk insights and enabling financial institutions to make better decisions with greater accuracy and speed. 

Lumio Insight’s cloud-based platform automates the ingestion of critical data from more than two dozen core, general ledger, BSA, and other financial and risk systems into a single data warehouse for improved access and deeper business intelligence. Banks and credit unions will gain a more comprehensive view of their operational health, improving financial stability and easing regulatory compliance. 

Over the next several months, the product teams will work together to deliver a unified, data-driven, AI-powered approach to risk and financial management that empowers executives and boards to navigate an increasingly complex landscape. This acquisition and technology integration is a key milestone in the company’s mission of empowering institutions with actionable insights to optimize risk. 

Wealth.com, the industry’s leading end-to-end estate planning platform, today announces the addition of Kathy Wunderli to its legal team as Head of Private Wealth. Wunderli joins the team with more than 20 years of experience in private wealth law, specializing in estate planning, probate, trust administration, and tax matters. Her distinguished career has made her a trusted advisor to entertainment industry professionals, high-net-worth families, individuals, closely-held business owners, and nonprofits. 

Most recently, Wunderli was a partner in the Private Wealth Group at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, based in Los Angeles, where she advised clients on a range of complex legal issues, including premarital and post-marital agreements, cross-border estate planning, and the administration of trusts and estates. 

Wunderli has received noteworthy recognition for her legal work on behalf of her clients and contributions to the legal community. She was named to Variety’s 2023 Legal Impact Report and earned a spot on the Hollywood Reporter’s 2022 list of Power Lawyers: Troubleshooters. Additionally, she was recognized as one of Los Angeles Times’ Inspirational Award nominees in 2024. Outside of her legal practice, Wunderli is deeply committed to advocacy and mentorship. She serves on the Board of the California Women’s Law Center, co-founded CHAI (Community Hope Action Initiative), a grassroots organization dedicated to uplifting and inspiring individuals to take bold action to improve their communities and the world. During her time at Willkie, she led mentoring initiatives within Willkie’s West Coast offices to foster an inclusive workplace culture. Additionally, Wunderli has made significant contributions to her community, having founded Redondo’s “Battle of the Books,” a reading program enjoyed by hundreds of children each year. 

Zeta, a next-gen banking tech provider to financial institutions globally, today announced it has secured a $50 million investment from a strategic investor valuing it at $2 billion. Zeta had previously been valued at a pre-money valuation of $1.15 billion when it raised $250 million from Softbank Vision Fund 2 and other marquee investors in 2021. 

Zeta’s SaaS offerings enable Banks and Fintechs to launch any asset, liability or payment product including credit cards, checking accounts, savings accounts, unsecured loans, and more – for consumers, SMBs and corporates on a modern, Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless (MACH) platform. 

Zeta counts some of the world’s largest and most regulated financial institutions as its clients including HDFC Bank, India’s largest private bank with whom it has launched a suite of products including Pixel – an innovative digital-native credit card program; Pluxee, a global corporate benefits provider; and Sparrow Financial, a card issuer for non-prime cardholders in the US. 

Zocks, an innovative, privacy-first AI platform that turns client conversations into actionable data and insights, today announced a partnership with Carson Group, a leading financial services firm providing solutions, resources, and support to a nationwide network of advisors. 

Through the partnership, Carson is leveraging Zocks advanced AI technology to build and update client profiles, capture meeting notes and tasks from conversations, and automate advisor workflows. Zocks is also streamlining replies to client email inquiries and surfacing broader insights across the firm’s advisor base. With seamless back office integrations, Carson and its advisors are gaining valuable client insights from across conversations, emails and CRM data. 

In just two months since launch, the partnership has demonstrated adoption and impact, with over 280 Carson Group users actively leveraging the platform to drive strategic insights and enhance client relationships.