Lloyds Banking Group and Nationwide have participated in a £11 million funding round for Scottish FinTech Aveni.

Aveni creates large language models (LLMs) and AI products designed specifically for the financial services industry in areas including risk management and compliance.

The FinTech will use the funding to develop an LLM in partnership with Lloyds Banking Group and Nationwide.

FinLLM will be a financial services LLM and aims to set the standard for transparent, responsible and ethical adoption of genAI in the UK financial services industry.

Aveni added that it will also use the funding to build on its existing products and further drive the adoption of genAI products in the sector.

The Series A investment round was led by Puma Private Equity with participation from Par Equity as well as Lloyds and Nationwide.

“Aveni’s cutting-edge AI solutions offer a huge opportunity for the financial services industry, streamlining operations and elevating the customer experience,” said Robin Scher, head of FinTech investments at Lloyds Banking Group. “Our collaboration aims to establish Aveni as a frontrunner of the industry’s adoption of AI, whilst maintaining a focus on responsible usage and customer-centricity.”

Samuel White, venture partner, NBS Ventures, at Nationwide said that the organisation has been closely monitoring Aveni for some time.

“The investment will enable Nationwide to work closely with world-leading experts to responsibly and ethically utilise Generative AI to deliver better service and outcomes for our members,” added White.

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