New tool Alfa is “essentially an AI coworker that users can train to think like them.”
Toronto-based investment software startup Boosted.ai has secured a $15-million USD ($20.9 million CAD) bridge round to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Alfa.
Boosted.ai anticipates raising a much larger round in 2025.
The all-equity round saw participation from existing investors Ten Coves Capital, Spark Capital, Portage Ventures, Royal Bank of Canada, and HarbourVest Partners, as well as “certain fund(s)” managed by Fidelity Investments Canada. When asked to clarify, a Boosted.ai spokesperson told BetaKit that the corporate entity of Fidelity did not invest, but a fund manager at Fidelity participated by investing out of a single Fidelity fund.
Boosted.ai did not disclose who led the round but described them as “a strategic investor who is also a client.”
Launched in 2017 by CEO Joshua Pantony, Jon Dorando, and Nicholas Abe, Boosted.ai uses AI for its proprietary web-based platform called Boosted Insights, which brings quantitative investing techniques to portfolio managers.
Boosted.ai said its clients use the platform for analytics, research and decision making, consultancy, commentary creation, and portfolio risk monitoring. The company said its latest tool, Alfa, builds on those roots and allows users to automate their workflows. Boosted.ai described Alfa as “essentially an AI coworker that users can train to think like them.”
RELATED: Boosted.ai raises $43.7 million CAD to scale AI platform for investment managers
In addition to investing in the AI offering, Boosted.ai will use the fresh capital to invest in “additional systems and team members” to handle onboarding and training new users due to increased product demand. Boosted.ai told BetaKit that it anticipates raising a much larger round in 2025.
With this latest raise, Boosted.ai has raised $61 million USD ($86 million CAD) to date. This figure does not include $10 million in growth capital the startup secured from CIBC Innovation Banking this past August, which Boosted.ai said it would use to invest in product development and sales expansion across the Canadian and United States markets.
The startup raised a $11.2 million CAD ($8 million USD) Series A round led by Portage Ventures in May 2020 before going on to secure a $43.7 million CAD ($35 million USD) Series B round led by Ten Coves Capital and Spark Capital in January 2022. At the time, Boosted.ai said it served 40 clients and had around 30 employees. Now, the startup has around 65 employees and claims it serves over 300 active clients that manage more than $3 trillion in assets across the institutional and wealth management space.
Feature image courtesy Jason Briscoe via Unsplash.
