Ascent Platform – a leader in financial portability solutions for banks and credit unions – announced that it has raised $5.3 million in venture funding. Foundation Capital, TruStage Ventures Discovery Fund, Alloy Labs, Reseda Group, and other investors led the round.
Open banking is taking hold in the US, and community banks and credit unions will need new tools to compete. Ascent is the first platform that enables financial institutions and customers to securely and bidirectionally share financial information on a permissioned basis. And the platform positions banks and credit unions to act as trusted partners in helping consumers and small businesses navigate the financial marketplace by giving them control over when and how information should be shared.
Financial institutions have troves of data on their customers, which is largely unstructured, siloed, and inoperable. Ascent merges external third-party data with an institution’s data to provide a wider view of the customer, surface insights about them, and deliver higher levels of personalization and service. By orchestrating data end-to-end across internal and external data sources, institutions can automate queries, analyses, and models that drive underwriting workflows across originations, monitoring, portfolio management, and compliance.
The end result is a whole of the customer across the institution. This platform enables customers to securely share information with other entities, not just financial institutions, but insurers, healthcare providers, logistics and supply chain partners, government, etc.
Ascent launched modules that unlock value from loan origination and servicing systems. And these modules centralize loan operations and orchestrate the flow of borrower data across systems, increasing the capacity of teams to focus on core business drivers. Deployment is white-glove with no engineering required and minimal IT involvement.
KEY QUOTES:
“Open banking will likely create dynamics similar to the Telecommunications Reform Act and HIPAA, where service and information portability increased market complexity and competition. With switching costs and barriers lowered, financial institutions will need to find new ways to create value. Ascent is positioned to capitalize on increased data accessibility in financial services and manage and control workflows within and across institutions.”
– Elizabeth McCluskey, Head of Discovery Fund and Director at Trustage Ventures
“Mid-size financial institutions struggle to compete with larger banks, particularly in the current environment. We invested in Ascent because the company’s technology makes it easy for credit unions and regional banks to digitize lending workflows without a costly rip-and-replace of existing systems.”
– Angus Davis, General Partner at Foundation Capital
“Our investors include some of the biggest and most innovative CUSOs, tech-forward banks, and fintech-focused VCs. We are grateful for their strategic guidance and support as we grow our network of clients and partners who are equally committed to enhancing the competitiveness of community banks and credit unions.”
– Arjun Sahgal, co-founder and CEO of Ascent
