In March, Singapore-based Transparently.AI was named as one of the 10 companies that have secured a place in Plug and Play’s Fintech 2023 Accelerator Program. The company was chosen from a list of over 1,000 startups to participate in this programme.

In a press statement, CEO and co-founder Hamish Macalister dub their participation as an “enormous opportunity”. He explains further in an email interview with e27 on what Transparently.AI wants to achieve through the programme.

“Plug and Play’s programme is a little different from many others. The primary focus is on connecting you with their corporate client base in the US and elsewhere. Their aim is to get you signed up for as many POCs, projects and contracts with their client base as possible. That client base is a who’s who of the financial community,” he writes.

“So it’s a fabulous opportunity for a startup. We effectively have the world’s largest technology accelerator doing business development/sales for us.”

Founded in 2021, Transparently.AI has developed an AI-based system for the automated detection of accounting manipulation and fraud in companies.

The company was founded by long-time Singapore residents Macalister and Mauro Sauco.

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“Our focus is on early identification of accounting or earnings manipulation that ultimately leads to failure. Essentially, the system finds the next Enron … the next Wirecard. While we hear through the media about these big names, at any one point in time there are literally thousands of companies, identified by our system, with worrying accounts. Our system has proven to be highly accurate regarding the identification of these companies,” Macalister describes the work that the company is doing.

“Critically, it identifies then on average two to three years before the wider market becomes aware that there is a problem.”

Macalister further explains the specific problem that Transparently.AI aims to solve.

“The losses incurred as a result of accounting malfeasance by corporates are staggering. More than US$1 trillion is lost to various stakeholders as a result of accounting manipulation every year! And that is just for listed companies, [with] unlisted companies will be a multiple of that,” he stresses.

The company raised a US$1 million in 2022 which supported the final development of the production release for its technology and the execution of its go-to-market strategy.

“That raise was assisted by us securing a contract with one of the world’s pre-eminent sovereign wealth funds to be client number one, prior to seeking external capital,” Macalister says.

Expanding beyond

Transparently.AI implements a revenue model where it provides a subscription service that gives clients access to a cloud-hosted portal. It enables users to search and screen for accounting manipulation by companies across the globe.

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“We also provide detailed analytics that explains exactly how a company is manipulating and fully automated forensic accounting reports. The latter is generated in two to three seconds for any of 80,000 companies and any financial year for those companies. The alternative would be hiring a forensic accounting team for weeks to analyse a single company,” Macalister says.

Transparently.AI’s participation in Plug and Play is just in time with the rise of AI’s popularity in society. The problem that the company aims to solve–accounting manipulation–is “brilliantly suited” to be handled by an AI-based solution, according to Macalister.

“It is highly complex, multi-dimensional and constantly evolving. Traditional modelling techniques simply can’t cope with that. AI/ML techniques have the ability to be completely dynamic and exploit that power to generate valuable and extremely insightful results,” he says.

The company itself already has a development pipeline planned out.

“There are myriad additional components we can add to our system to add further value to our users. This is particularly true with respect to the extraordinary array of unstructured datasets out there that provide additional perspectives on the issue of accounting manipulation,” Macalister says.

In addition to product development, in 2023, Transparently.AI has also planned for a deal pipeline with “some of the world’s largest financial institutions.”

“It is exciting to see how enthusiastic they are about incorporating our technology into their businesses. We also intend to launch a fundraise around mid-year to underpin our next phase of product development and accelerate our go-to-market strategy,” Macalister closes.

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Image Credit: Transparently.AI

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