9fin, the European AI-powered platform for international debt markets, has reportedly achieved unicorn status (valued at $1 billion+) with a $170 million Series C investment round. The funding round, which valued the firm recently at $1.3 billion, has been led by HarbourVest along with contributions from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and previous backers Redalpine, Highland Europe, Spark Capital, as well as Seedcamp.
Established by ex- JPMorgan banking professional Steven Hunter and Deutsche Bank engineering specialist Hussam EL-Sheikh, the firm has now reportedly secured over $250 million in funding so far.
9fin’s platform looks for data that is trapped in data rooms, email messages, as well as PDF files to offer credit professionals with the capability to accurately identify, effectively analyze, and take action on potential opportunities within a unified AI-enabled platform.
Over 300 banking institutions, asset management companies, law firms, and advisory service providers depend on 9fin as their platform for sourcing various deals, analyzing potential risk, and tracking international debt markets.
Steven Hunter, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of 9fin, said that AI will redefine the credit markets, but only if it’s enabled by proprietary data and embedded into how professionals work.
They added that this is exactly what we’ve built at 9fin.
They have now scaled their product across geographies and asset classes to provide clients with the required breadth and depth of data in an AI-powered platform. Their primary goal is to be the only platform credit professionals need. And this capital could get them to achieve their goal faster.
However, it is worth noting that there is still no comprehensive or definitive go-to platform for these types of services (and likely there will not be any in the future due to intense competition).
In fact, it is better if consumers have more options when it comes to obtaining AI-powered insights to inform their decision-making process. In its current form, AI is not yet advanced enough to fully support all types of research and requires constant monitoring because these algorithms make many mistakes.