The co-founders of Silent Eight, from left to proper: Michael Wilkowski, Julia Markiewicz and Martin Markiewicz.
Silent Eight
WARSAW — In the case of monetary crime, banks can typically be “one resolution away from an enormous mess,” Martin Markiewicz, CEO of Silent Eight informed CNBC.
That is as a result of the chance of fines and reputational harm is excessive if monetary companies do not do sufficient to stamp out crimes like cash laundering and terrorist financing. However it takes big period of time and sources to analyze and stop such actions.
Markiewicz’s firm makes use of synthetic intelligence (AI) to assist monetary establishments battle these points in a bid to chop the quantity of sources it takes to deal with crime, holding banks within the good books of regulators.
“So our grand concept for a product … (is that) AI needs to be doing this job, not essentially people,” Markiewicz mentioned in an interview on Thursday at a convention hosted by OTB Ventures. “So it is best to have a capability of 1,000,000 folks and do tens of millions of those investigations … with out having this limitation of identical to how large my crew is.”
With Silent Eight’s income set to see threefold development this 12 months and hit profitability for the primary time, Markiewicz needs to get his firm in place to go public within the U.S.
How AI can catch criminals
Silent Eight’s software program relies on generative AI, the identical expertise that underpins the viral ChatGPT chatbot. However it isn’t skilled in the identical means.
ChatGPT is skilled on a so-called massive language mannequin, or LLM. This can be a single set of big quantities of information, permitting immediate ChatGPT and obtain a response.
Silent Eight’s mannequin is skilled on a number of smaller fashions which can be particular to a process. For instance, one AI mannequin seems to be at how names are translated throughout completely different languages. This might flag an individual who’s probably opening accounts with completely different spellings of names internationally.
These smaller fashions mix to type Silent Eight’s software program that a number of the largest banks on the planet, from Normal Chartered to HSBC, are utilizing to battle monetary crime.
Markiewicz mentioned Silent Eight’s AI fashions have been really skilled on the processes that human investigators have been finishing up inside monetary establishments. In 2017, Normal Chartered turned the primary financial institution to start out utilizing the corporate’s software program. However Silent Eight’s software program required buy-in from Normal Chartered so the start-up may get entry to the chance administration knowledge within the financial institution to construct up its AI.
“That is why our technique was so dangerous,” Markiewicz mentioned.
“So we simply knew that we must begin with some large monetary establishments first, for the opposite ones to know that there isn’t a danger and comply with.”
As Silent Eight has onboarded extra banks as clients, its AI has been in a position to get extra superior.
Markiewicz added that for monetary establishments shopping for the software program, it’s “orders of magnitude” cheaper than paying all of the people that may be required to do the identical course of.
Silent Eight’s headquarters is in Singapore with places of work in New York, London, and Warsaw, Poland.
IPO forward
Markiewicz informed CNBC that he forecasts income to develop greater than three-and-a-half occasions in 2023 versus final 12 months, however declined to reveal a determine. He added that Silent Eight will likely be worthwhile this 12 months with increasingly monetary establishments approaching board.
HSBC, Normal Chartered and First Abu Dhabi Financial institution are amongst Silent Eight’s dozen or so clients.
The CEO additionally mentioned the corporate is just not planning to boost cash following a $40 million funding spherical final 12 months, that was led by TYH Ventures and welcomed HSBC Ventures, in addition to current buyers which embody OTB Ventures and Normal Chartered’s funding arm.
However he mentioned Silent Eight is getting “IPO prepared” by the tip of 2025 with a view to itemizing on the tech-heavy Nasdaq within the U.S. Nonetheless, this does not imply Silent Eight will go public in 2025. Markiewicz mentioned he needs the corporate to be in place to go public, which implies reporting funds like a public firm, for instance.
“It is an choice that I need to have, not that there is some obligation or some investor settlement that I’ve,” Markiewicz mentioned.