Meet Taktile, a startup working to create a machine-learning platform for financial service companies. This is not the first company to use machine learning in financial products. Taktile is determined to stand out from its competitors by making it easier to start and transition to AI-powered models.
Several years ago, you could find machine learning and AI in every pitch deck. Some startups decided to concentrate on the financial sector. This makes sense, as banks and insurers have a lot of data and can learn a lot about their customers. They could use this data to develop new models or roll out machine-learning applications.
Fintech companies have started to build their own data science teams and began machine learning for their products. To make better lending decisions, companies like October and Younited Credit use predictive risk tools. They have their own models, and can verify that they work when they run them against past data.
What about the legacy financial players? Some startups have created products that can be integrated into existing banking infrastructure. Artificial intelligence can be used to detect fraudulent transactions, predict creditworthiness and detect fraud in insurance claims.
Some have thrived, like Shift Technology which focuses on insurance. Many startups stop at proof-of-concepts. There is no long-term, meaningful business contract.
Taktile hopes to overcome this obstacle by creating a machine-learning product that is simple to use. It raised a seed round of $4.7 million from Index Ventures, firstminute Capital and Plug and Play Ventures, with several other business angels joining.
This product can be used with either pre-built or off-the-shelf models. These models can be customized by customers according to their requirements. Taktiles engine deploys and maintains models. It can be used in a cloud environment by customers or as a SaaS app.
You can then leverage Taktiles insights via API calls. It's similar to integrating third-party services into your product. With explanations for every automated decision and detailed logs, the company tried to be as transparent as possible. Taktile supports data warehouses and data lakes, as well as ERP systems and CRM systems.
The startup is still in its early stages, so it will be interesting to see if Taktiles vision comes to fruition. The company has managed to attract some experienced investors. Let's keep an eye out for them.
