A SCOTTISH fintech company has secured £1.1 million of investment to support the development of its speech analytics technology.

Aveni harnesses artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) to automate processes direct from the customer voice.

The investment, led by the TRICAPITAL angel syndicate, will be used to help the company expand into sectors beyond financial services, while building a team to support expansion in the UK.

The company’s Aveni Detect platform converts conversations into text before being passed through an NLP pipeline “to deliver novel insight and automation”.

It is said that the process creates opportunities for businesses to reduce the cost to serve, build better-trained workforces and identify leads for new products and services.

And it is believed the platform will help companies cut compliance costs, for example by helping businesses meet guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers, introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Joseph Twigg, chief executive of Aveni, said: “Consumer behaviour and business needs have changed significantly over the past 18 months as the service industry digitised in response to the pandemic. This created a new base of consumers comfortable with video conferencing led, digital-first services.  But it also created a major challenge for firms to monitor and assess these calls, especially as an increasing number of them were from vulnerable customers who needed additional attention.

"In the new world, AI can be adopted throughout the customer journey, driving new insight, significant efficiency gains and better protecting the vulnerable. It's a win-win situation. By using AI to help automate processes like quality assurance and risk monitoring, material cost reductions can be achieved. At the same time, companies gain targeted insights on customer experience and training opportunities for customer-facing staff.”

Moray Martin of TRICAPITAL said: "This is the second round of investment in Aveni that we have led on and we are delighted to continue to provide support and guidance to Joseph and the team throughout an unprecedented period. We knew that this cutting-edge technology had come at the perfect time to help businesses in a post-pandemic environment and that has proven to be the case. With Aveni Detect the business is taking its tech solutions to the next level."

Jo Nisbet, partner at law firm Harper Macleod, which advised Aveni on the founding round, said: “Aveni is a brilliant example of a potentially world-leading tech business coming out of Scotland's entrepreneurial ecosystem. It is phenomenal to see the business grow so rapidly and to play a part in helping them negotiate the challenges associated with scaling up."