Dec 4 : Flex, a man-made intelligence startup that goals to be a one-stop store for the monetary wants of mid-sized enterprise house owners, mentioned on Thursday it has raised $60 million in a Portage Ventures-led funding spherical.
The Series B spherical valued the agency at round $500 million, in line with an individual conversant in the deal. It takes Flex’s whole fairness elevate to $105 million.
The firm mentioned it’s focusing on “jumbo shrimps” — mid-sized worthwhile companies incomes between $2 million and $100 million a yr — usually ignored by conventional fintech platforms and primarily served by regional banks.
Unlike AI startups trying to sort out particular duties comparable to accounting or expense administration, Flex goals to bundle non-public credit score, enterprise finance, private finance and cost instruments right into a single answer.
“We have a very broad kind of product suite but an extremely narrow customer base,” founder and CEO Zaid Rahman instructed Reuters, noting many medium-sized companies lack giant finance groups that deal with such duties at larger enterprises.
“Our customer base are a few hundred thousand jumbo shrimp business owners. These business owners touch 40 per cent of American payroll.”Â
Despite a funding surge for AI startups, doubts stay about real-world adoption, with an MIT examine earlier this yr discovering that solely about 5 per cent of AI tasks advance past the pilot stage.
Flex is making an attempt to reduce inaccuracies by guaranteeing AI outputs are checked by monetary specialists. Growing adoption of its instruments – which embrace a enterprise bank card – has helped it triple funds quantity to $3 billion in 12 months.
The firm is launching a brand new invite-only shopper card referred to as Flex Elite that may compete with Amex Centurion, sometimes utilized by high-net-worth people.
It will use the brand new funds to speed up product growth and appeal to extra purchasers by increasing its 80-member crew.