Fetch.ai (https://fetch.ai/), a Cambridge-based artificial intelligence lab building an open-access decentralised machine learning network for smart infrastructure, announced today a research and development partnership with Algbra, the next-generation sustainable and values-focused fintech platform. This partnership will combine the expertise of Fetch’s AI-driven DeFi platform with Algbra’s digital finance solutions to help inform and empower overlooked minority communities within today’s existing Fintech ecosystem.
Focused on providing ethical financial services, Algbra raised over £3.75m in funding in its seed round earlier this year and has more recently been backed by high profile investors - including Lord Philip Hammond (former Chancellor and Foreign Secretary) and Rick Haythornthwaite (former Chairman of Mastercard and current Chairman of The AA and Ocado Group) – in its bridge investment round. Algbra is also working with Mastercard, Allen & Overy and New World Group - among other Tier 1 partners - to create a network of highly qualified institutions dedicated to bringing transparency and developing a core set of inclusive financial products for overlooked financial networks and communities that includes accounts, foreign exchange, remittances and rewards, with lending products to follow shortly thereafter.
“With over a quarter of the world’s population being financially overlooked (with 1.7 billion people on the planet remaining unbanked), decentralised finance has recently become a viable solution for communities both in the UK and across the globe,” said Zeiad Idris, CEO at Algbra. “Every person on this planet deserves to participate in the modern financial system, which is why we are partnering with Fetch.ai to provide state-of-the-art innovative solutions with governance at their core that will address the inequities that are currently in place.”
By collaborating with Fetch.ai to enable advanced transaction solutions, Algbra will be able to ensure customer funds will always be handled ethically while bringing transparency and clarity to the financial system. Through this partnership, Fetch.ai and Algbra will apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to DeFi and banking/fintech sector to enable retail consumers and SMEs to benefit from a more advanced understanding of their transactions, helping businesses succeed, and providing consumers with the ability to manage their money and the impact of their transactions. Fetch.ai’s artificial intelligence solutions will give smaller players access to larger data sets translated for the benefit of the everyday consumer through machine learning, leading to a more personalised user experience, better governance and a more democratised and secure financial system for all.
“Together, we will combine our expertise and technology with Algbra to pioneer a new space of ethical, decentralised and democratised finance,” said Humayun Sheikh, CEO of Fetch.ai. “This partnership will demonstrate that technology and finance can be brought together with moral values without sacrificing quality to enable a better and more financially inclusive world. We are very excited to be branching our technology into the financial technology ecosystem, helping to show that autonomous technology is the key to providing solutions for broader industries.”