Informed.IQ, which automates verifications for financial companies, has secured $20 million in a Series A round enabling the startup to meet demand from consumer lenders that give auto loans, mortgages, HELOCs and personal loans.
The startup’s funding round was co-led by Nyca Partners and US Venture Partners with some noteworthy participating investors including Manuel Bronstein, former VP of Product at Google and Dan Romero, former VP of Coinbase.
Informed.IQ, which is based in San Francisco, has customers like Westlake Financial and Ally Financial while also having advisors to its company like Tim Russi, former President of Ally Financial and Michael DeVito, former Head of Mortgage at Wells Fargo Bank.
The company can help financial businesses verify income, assets, residence and other data through its automation which ensures more reliable credit decisions and funding, it claims in the press release. The startup also claims it can do these verifications “in seconds with 98% accuracy, versus the industry standard of 85-90% achieved in manual processes,” the news release read.
“Informed is able to actually look at these documents in real time. The AI can analyze those documents and can compare the earnings for that construction worker compared to all the other construction workers in that region and ascertain if this is in line or is this potentially fraudulent,” Justin Wickett, CEO of Informed.IQ, told FinLedger.
The company plans to use the capital injection to hire more employees across departments and “to get the word out,” about the business, Wickett said. Currently, Informed.IQ has about 20 employees and is looking to build out more sales staff and bolster its overall team by doubling its headcount. Informed.IQ also has a partnership with fintech giant Fiserv.
“Informed is automating the back office work of these large financial institutions, and Fiserv is a distribution partner of the Informed services,” he said. “Informed is looking to partner with other loan origination system providers across the United States to automate more of the verifications for lenders that they would otherwise be having to do manually.”
Looking ahead, Wickett said he sees the startup expanding to other lines of business within financial institutions.
“We’re getting pulled up funnel to give consumers who are applying for credit more access and visibility into their financial options in real time.”
What investors are saying
“Informed’s mission is to ensure that all borrowers are getting the best rate available by quickly accepting and analyzing financial data that up until now went unrecognized,” Nyca’s Managing Partner, Hans Morris, said in a statement.
“Informed’s technology solves what today is a tedious manual process through proprietary automated error reduction,” Steve Krausz, Managing Partner at US Ventures said in a statement. “Informed eliminates potential bias, conscious or unconscious, that can unknowingly appear in underwriting and funding decisions. Informed protects its customers from exposure to costly legal and reputational risk.”
In other recent news, Rally, a fractional alternative investing platform in collectibles, has raised a $30 million Series B funding round led by Accel and has nabbed a $50 million debt facility from Upper90 Capital.