Latest news with #FinTechCollective
Business Wire
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
AgentSmyth Raises $8.7M Seed Round From FinTech Collective, Thomson Reuters and Others to Scale Autonomous Agent Platform for Trading and Investment
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AgentSmyth, the autonomous agent platform for trading and investment delivering real-time, institutional-grade intelligence to professional traders, has closed an $8.7 million Seed round, co-led by FinTech Collective and Thomson Reuters, with BNY joining through its Ascent fintech-innovation program. The new capital brings the company's total funding to $11.2 million, including a $2.5 million pre-seed led by Michael Rafferty, president and CEO of Rafferty Holdings, who also participated in the current round. In less than 12 months, AgentSmyth has been deployed by 48 institutional customers including banks, hedge funds, and asset-management firms with client assets of $2 billion - $50 billion. AgentSmyth leverages AI-generated equities market intelligence, research and insights – all delivered by a team of five autonomous agents capturing real-time macro data, investor sentiment, quantitative analysis, options activity, and corporate earnings. AgentSmyth's speed, accuracy and insights are particularly valuable in today's diverse and volatile markets, making this technology one of the most powerful tools available to institutional investors. 'We're thrilled to have a syndicate of investors who don't just share our vision—they're betting on it,' said Pulkit Jaiswal, co-founder and CEO of AgentSmyth. 'Investment research is becoming a commodity; the real edge is turning that raw insight into basis-point-generating trades. Competitors might find the paragraph—AgentSmyth tells you how to trade it. The platform has already been rolled out on the trading floors of some of Wall Street's largest institutions. This round lets us accelerate adoption and ship the next wave of fully autonomous, trade-ready agents.' 'The first time Pulkit walked us through their agent stack, it was obvious this was more than another AI plugin—it's the missing link between market data and trade execution,' said Brooks Gibbins, co-founder of FinTech Collective. 'We've backed fintech founders around the world since 2012, and AgentSmyth stands out for pairing deep capital-markets DNA with production-ready AI. It's already changing how desks make money, and we're thrilled to help scale that impact.' 'Thomson Reuters Ventures invests in innovative companies that align with our strategic objectives and the markets we serve. In the financial services sector, AI is rapidly transforming institutional investment analysis. The use of AI to generate trade ideas, stay up to date with company coverage, and analyze investment data is no longer optional. AgentSmyth has developed a transformational agentic AI platform that incorporates over 100 data sets streaming in real-time and performs institutional-grade investment analysis using a variety of different investment disciplines,' said Tamara Steffens, Managing Director, Thomson Reuters Ventures. 'We are thrilled to be partnering with this highly talented and experienced team.' In addition to the Seed financing, AgentSmyth has joined BNY's Ascent Program, which was established to facilitate innovation and collaboration with the fintech ecosystem and its emerging leaders. Through the program, AgentSmyth will collaborate with BNY on refining the autonomous-agent platform and its adoption across institutional desks. Other investors include Binnacle Financial Group; Systemic Ventures; Scott Friedman, former President, Chief Compliance Officer and founding team member at Robinhood; Jason Halbert, a doctoral-level behavioral scientist and former U.S. Army special-operations officer who helped scale Snapchat from 40 employees to 10,000 and through its IPO; and Will Mayer and Alyssa Bonanno of Better Half, who also serve as AgentSmyth's brand partners, bringing experience from category-defining brands such as Bilt Rewards and Equinox. About AgentSmyth AgentSmyth is an autonomous agent platform for trading and investment that rapidly produces the most current institutional-grade intelligence essential to professional traders. The company is headquartered in New York City. For more information, visit AgentSmyth is a registered investment advisory (See: FINRA registered.
Associated Press
27-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
USDFC Official Launch on the Filecoin Network
ZUG, SWITZERLAND / ACCESS Newswire / May 27, 2025 / Secured Finance AG announced the official launch of USDFC, a USD-denominated stablecoin on the Filecoin Network. Users can now mint, swap, pay, lend, borrow and bridge USDFC entirely on-chain. What Is USDFC? USDFC is a USD-pegged stablecoin issued against at least 110% over-collateralization in native FIL. Third-party-audited smart contracts and a 24-hour arbitrage bot monitor and correct the price (target ≈ 1 USDFC = 1 USD). Anyone can mint or redeem directly on-chain. USDFC Use Cases (with more coming) Security & Stability Resources About Secured Finance AG Secured Finance AG is a fintech company building on-chain fixed-rate lending markets and the USDFC stablecoin. Backed by investors including Protocol Labs, FinTech Collective, GSR and HTX Ventures, the company's mission is to deliver inter-bank-grade transparency and security to Web3 and connect real-world finance with blockchains. Disclaimer This press release is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to purchase, USDFC or any other digital asset in any jurisdiction. USDFC is currently not available to persons located or resident in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area, Japan, Canada, or any OFAC-sanctioned country. USDFC is a stablecoin collateralized by FIL (Filecoin) and is not legal tender. Holding or using USDFC involves risks, including price volatility of the underlying FIL collateral, liquidity and redemption risks of USDFC itself, and the risks inherent in trading on SushiSwap V3, lending on Secured Finance, and bridging via Axelar or Squid. Nothing in this press release constitutes financial, legal, or tax advice. Before engaging with USDFC, you should consult your own financial, legal, and tax advisors. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Contact: Taiga Yamada [email protected] SOURCE: Secured Finance AG press release
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Glassbox Raises $1.2M to Reimagine the Spreadsheet for AI-Enabled Corporate Transactions
Emerging from stealth, Glassbox opens its waitlist, available at TORONTO, February 18, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Glassbox, a Toronto-based fintech startup, announced today that it has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding to reimagine how finance teams work with spreadsheets in the age of AI. The round was led by FinTech Collective (New York) and StandUp Ventures (Toronto), with participation from Watertower Ventures (Los Angeles). The fresh capital will be used to expand Glassbox's team and bring its AI-compatible financial analysis platform to market. For decades, corporate finance workflows have relied on clunky spreadsheets, long hours, and error-prone manual processes. While other industries have begun embracing real-time collaboration tools and AI-powered assistants, finance teams have been left with little more than bigger, more complex Excel files. Glassbox aims to change that. "Agentic workflows are generating a lot of buzz, but corporate finance remains hindered by manual processes and fragmented, context-poor data trapped in spreadsheets, limiting their potential," said Allison Harris, Glassbox's CEO and co-founder. "Our goal is to build smarter, more transparent tools that will truly enable finance professionals to responsibly leverage AI at scale." Glassbox's solution is centered around a new framework it calls FinScript. Rather than building financial models and analysis with traditional spreadsheet formulas, users can input plain text instructions that align with large language models' (LLMs) capabilities for processing written information. This approach adds context and structure to data and enables faster, more auditable analysis while maintaining compatibility with existing Excel-based processes. "FinScript bridges the gap between human expertise and LLMs' power," said Ian Kennedy, CTO and co-founder. "FinScript transforms complex financial models into simple, auditable instructions, allowing teams to work faster and smarter without compromising on rigor or transparency." According to the company, even junior analysts using FinScript can evaluate deals up to five times faster than experienced Excel users. The system also reduces the risk of costly errors, an issue that has long plagued finance teams. "Finance is uniquely positioned to benefit from AI, but spreadsheets are not built for this shift," said Brooks Gibbins, co-founder and Managing Partner at FinTech Collective. "You can think of Glassbox as the financial modeling equivalent of GitHub for code management or Notion for content creation - bringing 0-1 structure, traceability, and collaboration to complex financial workflows. By staying fully compatible with Excel, Glassbox enables finance teams to harness the power of AI without disrupting their existing processes." The founding team brings deep expertise to the challenge. Harris, who is a Princeton-educated engineer with experience in energy investment banking and derivatives structuring on Wall Street, brings firsthand insight into the inefficiencies of traditional finance workflows. Kennedy, a seasoned engineer and cloud architect with over 15 years of experience, leads technical strategy and development for Glassbox. "We're always inspired by founders with deep industry expertise and a personal drive to solve the problems they've lived," explains Michelle McBane, Managing Director at StandUp Ventures. "When Allison shared that she was building the tool she wished had existed during her time in investment banking — and that it would have changed her entire career trajectory — we knew this was a founder and a vision we had to back." Glassbox has been operating in stealth mode for the past 18 months, running private beta programs with select industry leaders. The company is now opening its waitlist to a broader audience, with plans to scale distribution later this year. "The applications of Glassbox are remarkably broad," Harris noted. "From investment banking and private equity to hedge funds, FP&A, and insurance, Glassbox is designed to maintain flexibility, making it ideal for a wide range of financial analysis use cases." With its innovative approach and sophisticated backers, Glassbox is positioning itself as a key player in the emerging field of AI-enabled financial services. The company's next-gen spreadsheet platform is poised to transform how financial professionals analyze deals, collaborate, and make decisions — all without leaving Excel behind. Glassbox's waitlist is now open. Join the waitlist at About Glassbox Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Toronto, Glassbox is on a mission to empower capital markets and investment professionals with cutting-edge tools that deliver unmatched productivity gains, reduce errors, and harness the power of AI. By reinventing the spreadsheet as an AI-compatible platform, Glassbox aims to make financial analysis faster, smarter, and more transparent. About FinTech Collective FinTech Collective is a global, early-stage venture capital firm backing entrepreneurs who are rewiring the way money moves through the world. Founded in 2012 with offices in New York City and London, the firm has deep experience investing across capital markets, wealth and asset management, banking, lending, payments, insurance, and DeFi. The managing partners of FinTech Collective met in their mid 20s and helped build, scale, and successfully exit four fintech businesses. Backed by some of the world's leading institutional investors, FinTech Collective manages ~$1b in regulatory assets. Over the last decade the firm has had 10 exits, taken one company from pitch deck to public markets and invested in close to 100 portfolio companies including well known firms such as Anyfin in Stockholm, bunch and Mondu in Berlin, Flutterwave in Lagos, IMMO in London, Mattilda in Mexico City, Simetrik in Colombia, and several important businesses in NYC including MoneyLion, NYDIG, Quovo (acquired by Plaid) and Vestwell. About StandUp Ventures StandUp Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in high-growth, women-led companies. Founded in 2017, StandUp was built on the belief that top founders are often women and investing in them will drive top returns. With 31 investments and $56M in AUM across two funds, StandUp backs ambitious entrepreneurs solving big problems and scaling enduring businesses, with a focus on category-defining B2B SaaS, AI, digital health, and marketplace companies across North America. View source version on Contacts info@
