Yields.io, a provider of automated model monitoring and validation services to the financial sector, announced a €1.25 million seed funding round led by Volta Ventures and joined by Pamica NV, the investment company of Michel Akkermans, former chairman and CEO of Clear2Pay and FICS.
Yields.io is able to identify issues in algorithms and turn them into actionable business insights, providing C-level executives with a real-time comprehensive overview of all model risk across the enterprise, bringing transparency to the highly specialized field of mathematical modeling. The disruptive model validation service provider will have both Volta Ventures and Michel Akkermans on the board.
The company was founded in April 2017 by James D’Aquino, Sébastien Viguié and Jos Gheerardyn and currently employs seven people out of its offices in Ghent (Belgium) and New York City.
Jos Gheerardyn, co-founder and CEO of Yields.io said: “After the credit crisis and the London Whale incident, model risk – which is the risk one takes by using mathematical models – has become center stage in the financial industry. The process of model testing is currently very manual. As a consequence, banks can hardly keep up with the increased requirements around model governance. Yields.io leverages A.I. to bring more transparency to this process and to empower model validators, model users and managers alike with a highly scalable and structured solution.”
Michel Akkermans, said: “In an environment that is still dominated by consulting companies offering manual outsourcing solutions, our investment will allow Yields.io to accelerate its product development to better address the needs of financial institutions. In addition, the company will build out an international sales team and increase its marketing activities.”
Yves Petit, venture partner with Volta Ventures commented: “It was the outstanding combination of a financial background, mathematical expertise and modular software systems that impressed us. Yields.io’s platform is an excellent automation solution in a very labour-intensive world, while also providing the financial C-level with a heatmap of its company-wide used models. Supporting Yields.io in providing this solution now onto a global scale is a challenge we look forward to.”
Yields.io empowers quantitative teams with a solution to shorten the development cycle and address new business opportunities more quickly. In order to comply with increasingly strict ECB requirements related to the use of mathematical models, several Tier 1 investment banks are already piloting Yields.io’s platform.
