Interface.ai, a customer automation platform for banks and other financial institutions, today announced it has closed a $30 million funding round led by Avatar Venture Partners.
$20 million of this round was in equity, with the remaining $10 million in the form of debt. This is Interface's first external capital. The startup was completely bootstrapped.
“Interface is trusted by over 100 financial institutions across North America and processes millions of interactions every day,” CEO and co-founder Srinivas Njay told TechCrunch. “We generate tens of millions of dollars in recurring revenue annually.”
Njay said the inspiration for Interface came from his father, who ran a credit union in India. Previously, Njay worked at Microsoft as a product manager on the Bing advertising team and at EA as a senior product manager for mobile games.
Njay launched Interface in 2019 in partnership with Bruce Kim, founder of customer management and billing company Inovaware.
“Large national banks are investing heavily in AI to transform their banking operations,” Njay said. “But for many local and community-based financial institutions, staffing and resourcing this capability is completely out of reach. The interface democratizes access to AI.”
Interface's core product is a collection of voice and text-based AI agents designed to handle basic banking customer service requests. Using models trained on in-house data, agents can perform tasks such as assisting with mortgage payment changes or opening new accounts.
Banks can customize their agents by fine-tuning them based on internal data. Agents can also be configured to upsell products based on information such as the content of previous chats.
“Our AI is specifically designed for the banking industry, with pre-built integrations, data models, and workflows,” Njay said.
Financial institutions are experimenting with AI, especially generative AI, in everything from customer service to predictive analytics. More than half of global and U.S. banks plan to implement some level of generative AI over the next year, according to a March study published in American Banker.
In addition to Interface, other AI startups looking to grab a piece of banks' business include Hyperplane, which builds AI models that predict customer behavior. Cambio develops AI to talk to bank customers. Digital onboarding is dedicated to strengthening the bank-customer relationship.
But bank customers are wary of the technology. In a J.D. Power poll, only 27% said they would trust AI with financial information and advice, and less than half said they would accept product recommendations from AI.
Additionally, financial institutions are not necessarily implementing AI for customer communications. This is a big part of Interface's business. But the good news is that credit unions, one of Interface's largest customer segments, are aggressively adopting chatbot technology this year.
“Our platform has multiple avenues to create value,” says Njay. “The number of unique applications for AI is one of the key factors contributing to the interface’s ability to overcome potential headwinds.”
With the new funding from the funding round, Interface plans to expand its 120-person team into North America and India and “accelerate its go-to-market efforts.”