Eigen Bags $5m From Client ING, Will Partner On New NLP Uses

Financial services and legal sector-focused AI company Eigen Technologies has bagged a $5m investment from ING Ventures – which is a client. The additional funding follows on from the doc analysis startup’s $37m (£29m) Series B round in November 2019. This brings the overall funds raised to over $60m since it broke cover back in 2017.

The investment is part of a broader strategic partnership between the two companies that combines Eigen’s NLP technology with ING’s expertise in the application of machine learning to financial services.

They’re already working together on doc review in relation to LIBOR and loans. They will now also explore how else the bank can use NLP tech for the unstructured data analysis of its many document types.

The London-based AI doc analysis company, which was seen very much as a ‘dark horse‘ back in 2017 when Artificial Lawyer first wrote about Eigen, has steadily established itself and now also counts Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Hiscox and global law firm Allen & Overy as clients. It’s also moved into new offices in the City of London and grown to over 100 staff.

One noteworthy fact is that at least two of its publicly named clients have invested in the company – Goldman Sachs and ING.

Eigen Co-founder & CEO, Dr Lewis Liu, said: ‘Since our foundation, one of Eigen’s greatest strengths has been the deep and strategic relationships we have with our clients and partners.

‘In the years we have worked with ING we have found them to have some of the most advanced thinking in the market on the application of machine learning in financial services, something that comes from their fantastic innovation culture. To have ING join us as both an investor and strategic partner is a great privilege.’

While Benoît Legrand, ING’s Chief Innovation Officer and CEO of ING Ventures, concluded: ‘Eigen offers a strategic capability in the intelligent operations domain, deployed in use cases across retail as well as wholesale banking. This partnership will allow both companies to work closer together when implementing use cases through data and process analysis, so as to accelerate Eigen’s advantage in NLP as well as ING’s digital transformation.‘ 

Is this a big deal? The new investment is seen as very much a ‘follow on’ to the most recent Series B investment round, rather than an entirely new Series C round, so in that respect it’s not a massive change. Probably the most significant factor here is that they are again seeing a major bank, which is also a client, investing in their business.

It’s always a huge vote of confidence when a client invests in your business. It also underlines a long term commitment to the use of their AI software. So, overall, not Earth-shattering, but certainly solidly good news for the company that is indicative of healthy growth.