Synapse Analytics has raised US$13 million in a Series A funding round to expand its AI decisioning technology for regulated financial institutions. The investment will help the Abu Dhabi-based company develop its products, grow its teams and enter more international markets.
The latest round brings Synapse Analytics’ total funding to US$17 million since it was founded in 2018. The terms of the transaction and the company’s valuation were not disclosed.
The round was led by global technology investment firm Partech, with participation from Algebra Ventures and Silicon Badia.
Ahmed Abaza, Co-founder and CEO of Synapse Analytics, said the funding would support the company’s goal of helping financial institutions make faster and more secure decisions.
“Our mission is to give financial institutions the intelligence and decision infrastructure they need to make faster, more secure decisions to reduce risk, unlock growth and build stronger customer relationships,” Abaza said.
Keeping AI and Data Under Institutional Control
Synapse Analytics was created to address a key challenge facing financial institutions as they adopt AI. Many institutions want the speed and efficiency of AI models but are concerned about sending sensitive data outside their own systems.
The company’s technology allows financial institutions to deploy its decisioning solutions within their own environments. This includes on-premise systems, private and public cloud, sovereign cloud and air-gapped networks.
This allows banks and other regulated institutions to automate decisions across credit, customer onboarding, fraud detection and anti-money laundering while maintaining control over their data and policies.
Risk and Credit teams can also change policies and test their impact against historical data before putting them into use. Synapse says this gives institutions a way to adopt AI at scale while meeting governance, compliance and data-sovereignty requirements.
Lewam Kefela, Principal at Partech, said the firm was backing Synapse as it builds decisioning infrastructure for financial institutions across the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
“We’re excited to back Synapse Analytics as it builds the category-leading decisioning infrastructure for banks and financial institutions across the Middle East, Africa and Latin America,” Kefela said.
Expanding AI Capabilities Across Markets
Founded by Ahmed Abaza and Galal Elbeshbishy, Synapse Analytics develops AI infrastructure for banks, fintechs, non-bank financial institutions and telecommunications companies.
Its technology supports credit scoring, onboarding, fraud detection, anti-money laundering and portfolio management. The company currently works with institutions across the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
Co-founder and COO Galal Elbeshbishy said the company is now expanding its focus beyond underwriting decisions.
“We built Synapse Analytics to help financial institutions make better underwriting decisions,” he said. The company is developing intelligent agents that can work alongside financial teams to refine credit policies, improve underwriting criteria and monitor portfolios in real time.
According to Elbeshbishy, these tools can help institutions identify emerging risks and opportunities, respond faster to changes in markets and borrower behaviour, and grow portfolios while reducing risk.
“Our vision is to create the AI operating system for the new age of finance,” he said.
Synapse will use the new funding to strengthen its engineering and commercial teams, accelerate product development and expand its international market presence.
