News
Bank of Ceylon enhances KYC & KYB with Sikoia
Sikoia is thrilled to announce its new partnership with Bank of Ceylon, designed to streamline their KYC and KYB processes, enhancing efficiency and compliance.
The company was founded by Alexis Rog, former investor at SoftBank Vision Fund; Stephen Simmons, who previously headed Data and Analytics Engineering at JP Morgan Equities’ business; Alastair Bulger, former Head of Proposition at Experian; and Harry Singh, former founder of its open banking consultancy.
31st August 2021, London: Sikoia, the unified data platform for the next generation of financial services, announces today that it has closed a pre-seed funding round of $2.3m, led by Earlybird and followed by Seedcamp, both active European seed funds. The U.K.-based Fintech has also attracted angel investment from several industry titans, including Raffael Johnen, CEO of Auxmoney; Fabian Weseman, CFO of Wefox; and Charlie Delingpole, CEO of ComplyAdvantage.
Sikoia’s mission is to help Fintechs, lenders and corporates navigate and capitalise on the latest financial innovations and cut through the noise of an increasingly fragmented Fintech service provider landscape. By unifying third party data and APIs into a single interface with automated workflows and advanced analytics, Sikoia extends the capabilities of existing systems, increases efficiency and reduces regulatory risk.
More than 20 players across open banking, credit scoring, KYC, AML, third-party databases, and alternative data sources are already integrated with Sikoia.
Sikoia focuses on solving well-defined business use cases, starting with consumer and small business lending. With a centralised, auditable platform for all financial data, Sikoia helps lenders and intermediaries optimise their credit decisions and reduce their regulatory risk by normalising their customer data and managing their API provider ecosystem.
The company was founded by Alexis Rog, former investor at SoftBank Vision Fund; Stephen Simmons, who previously headed Data and Analytics Engineering at JP Morgan Equities’ business; Alastair Bulger, former Head of Proposition at Experian; and Harry Singh, former founder of its open banking consultancy.
They came together around an emerging opportunity resulting from the increasing fragmentation of APIs, and the shift of banking products away from traditional financial institutions.
“Sikoia’s plug and play approach is a real game changer, allowing Fintechs to access an entire data ecosystem”
"Thousands of APIs are opening siloed data sources globally at a rapid pace, but the explosion in the number of touchpoints has created significant complexity; and it’s increasingly difficult to integrate this dynamic ecosystem in existing back-end systems and processes. We couldn’t find a comprehensive solution that didn’t require complex manual configuration and lengthy integration. So we decided to build it." said Alexis Rog, CEO and co-founder of Sikoia. "With such a strong network of investors on board, we not only have their endorsement and confidence, but their insight and experience to support us as we head to public launch."
Dr. Christian Nagel, founding partner of Earlybird and board member of various Fintech companies like N26 and Smava, comments: “We strongly believe that Sikoia will solve the immense pain point of the financial industry to cope with an increasing number of data sources. Data silos, multiple data formats, and poor data quality lead to highly inefficient processes today. We are excited to join forces with the stellar founding team at Sikoia, building a unified data platform to address those issues.“
Reshma Sohoni, Seedcamp Co-Founder and Managing Partner said: “Sikoia’s plug and play approach is a real game changer, allowing Fintechs to access an entire data ecosystem and automate the most critical layer of their technology stack. We’re delighted to share this journey with such a dynamic and skilled team and are excited about their vision”
The current round will help accelerate product development and expand the functionalities of the platform ahead of the public launch later this year.
Sikoia is the unified data platform for the next generation of financial services. We’re on a mission to help Fintechs, lenders, and corporates navigate and capitalise on the latest financial innovations and cut through the noise of an increasingly fragmented Fintech service provider landscape. By unifying third party data and APIs into a single interface with automated workflows and advanced analytics, we extend the capabilities of existing systems, increasing efficiency and reducing regulatory risk.
Earlybird is a venture capital investor focused on European technology companies. Founded in 1997, Earlybird invests in all growth and development phases of a company. Amongst the most experienced venture investors in Europe, Earlybird offers its portfolio companies not only financial resources, but also strategic support as well as access to an international network and capital markets. Earlybird manages different funds with focuses on digital technologies in Eastern and Western Europe as well as health technologies. With EUR 1.5 billion under management, eight IPOs and 30 trade sales, Earlybird is one of the most successful venture capital firms in Europe. For further information: www.earlybird.com
Seedcamp (seedcamp.com) is Europe’s seed fund, investing early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets and solving real problems using technology. Seedcamp has backed over 300 companies since launch in 2007 and its portfolio includes three European-founded unicorns: TransferWise, UiPath and Revolut. For further information: www.seedcamp.com
Sikoia Ltd is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an Account Information Service Provider (AISP) under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (FRN: 942979) and as a credit reference provider (FRN: 942616). Sikoia Ltd is a credit broker and not a lender. Credit is subject to status.
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