Episode 35

full
Published on:

22nd Apr 2023

Modernizing Contract Data with Arteria.ai Co-Founder and CRO, Abrar Huq

Abrar Huq is the Co-Founder and CRO of the AI company Arteria AI. He shares about becoming an Attorney but never practicing and how AI will change how contracts and documentation are done in Fintech.

Three things in this episode that we dive into.

1️⃣ How the Data in Docs can be used to make better decisions

2️⃣ How incubating at Deloitte Canada provided much-needed focus

3️⃣ Being a Startup is Life in Hard Mode

Also, watch the entire episode on youtube.

https://youtu.be/aaiKaFAsurk

Links:

Arteria AI

Website: https://www.arteria.ai/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arteria-ai/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@arteriaai8328

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ABOUT:

Abrar Huq: Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Arteria AI. At Arteria AI, Abrar is responsible for all revenue generation and go-to-market activities, including sales, operations, partnerships, and marketing.

Prior to Arteria AI, Abrar was a Partner at Deloitte Canada in Omnia AI, the Artificial Intelligence practice.

Abrar specializes in delivering artificial intelligence (AI) and technology projects and solutions in the legal industry.

His expertise focuses on assisting legal departments and businesses in making data-driven decisions and infusing technology in the delivery of legal services with a particular focus on AI. He has extensive experience leading large cross-functional teams and working directly with client representatives. Abrar has led AI-enabled projects and solutions delivered globally with multinational teams.

Abrar is a former lawyer who was called to the Bar of Ontario in June 2012 and obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Toronto and has a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance from the University of Saskatchewan.

Abrar was previously the Operations Lead for Omnia, Deloitte’s Artificial Intelligence practice, overseeing the daily operations of the practice and its 500+ practitioners across Canada and Chile. Abrar had a mandate to drive operational efficiency within the practice and worked alongside the Managing Partner and Chief Operating Officer to develop and implement business strategies for performance and growth.

Arteria AI : Powered by data, Arteria AI is trusted by the world’s largest banks to transform client document processes at enterprise scale – working smarter and faster to maximize revenue and save time and cost. Arteria AI's client documentation solution removes the need for legacy manual processes by structuring data during the documentation life cycle to speed up decision-making processes for all stakeholders with a highly intuitive front-end.

Built by subject matter experts, data scientists and technologists, Arteria AI's solution unleashes the power of data to help global, regulated financial institutions solve client document complexity at scale. Adopting an innovative data-first approach, our AI-powered enterprise-ready solution takes the friction out of the paper trail. 

Tedd Huff: President & Founder of Diamond D3, a professional services consulting firm focused on global payments and marketing. He is also a video podcast host and producer of Fintech Confidential and Head of Corporate Strategy at Corvia. 

Over the past 24 years, he has contributed to FinTech startups as an Advisory Board Member, Co-Founder, and Chief Experience Officer, providing strategic and tactical direction for Global Payments OpenEdge, Heartland Payments, Nuvei, and TSYS, among others, focusing on growth while delivering innovation, process improvements and user experience-driven value to simplify the complexity of payments.

Diamond D3, Media: A media creation, management, and production company delivering engaging content globally

Transcript

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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were providing defensibility so

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that when a regulator came and asked

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where an institution was on the remediation activity, um, or to report on,

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the level of exposure that an institution has

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Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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Abrar Huq The co-founder and chief revenue Officer for Arteria ai.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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He's a former lawyer and AI expert, and Abrar specializes in delivering AI

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and technology products and solutions.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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Really focused from the legal industry perspective.

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Now, prior to Arteria Abrar was a partner at Deloitte Canada in o, in

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the Omnia AI artificial intelligence practice, where he was the operations

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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lead overseeing the daily operations of the practice, and over 500 plus

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practitioners across Canada and Chile.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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Abrar welcome to the.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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show

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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Thanks for having me, Tedd

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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Tune in,

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as we go through and we discuss Arteria AI's innovative approach to helping banks

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and other fintechs make faster and more informed decisions and hear more about.

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Abrar's expertise in AI in the legal industry,

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and listen all the way to the end because he is gonna provide some

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guidance for FinTech founders on how to build a successful company.

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Abrar before we start diving into Arteria's past and present and future, how

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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did you first become interested in FinTech and what led you to found co-found?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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Arteria

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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That's a great question.

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It's

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an, Not an easy answer, uh, but,

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I'll take you through a little bit of the, uh, the background

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I've.

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Spent some time

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in the legal industry.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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My background is in law.

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Uh, it's not in banking, it's not necessarily in finance.

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Although I did do an undergraduate degree in finance.

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It didn't really, uh, turn into anything professionally.

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I went straight into law school after that,

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but I quickly realized that I didn't want to be practicing

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law on a day-to-day basis.

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That wasn't what got me excited in the morning, what got me

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excited in the morning, and what got me outta bed was doing.

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New and interesting and innovative things and thinking about things

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differently and how to approach traditional problems in a different way.

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And that started out in a very legal focused,

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one of my first, uh, jobs out, out of.

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Law school was not as a practicing lawyer, but actually working at a legal technology

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company, uh, that had been founded by Arteria AI's Current CEO Shelby Austin.

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We grew that startup to about a couple hundred people.

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We were focused on a similar type of problem to what we are

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today, although more focused.

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on How law firms delivered their services.

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Uh, it was more of a people oriented business than a, than

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a technology oriented business.

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We successfully exited that business, selling that business to Deloitte, which

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is how we ended up at, at Deloitte.

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Uh, once we got to Deloitte, uh, we were the.

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The data people, the analytics people, uh, not necessarily in financial

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services specifically, but because of where we were, who we worked with,

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who our client base was, um, banking especially, uh, in, in Canada where,

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where we were based, uh, and still are based and headquartered banking

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is one of the biggest industries here.

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Uh, the, the, the big five Canadian banks, uh, Generate a lot of

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revenue for the consultant firm.

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So at Deloitte, they were a big priority for us.

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And so, uh, that is how I became a financial services practitioner

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consultant in those days.

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Uh, starting out focused on data and analytics problems, uh, ultimately

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into delivering AI programs for.

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Financial institutions.

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Uh, and that was sort of my first foray into fintechs.

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Uh, and it was there at Deloitte that we ultimately built the

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foundation for what is now Arteria ai.

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Uh, we initially called it Detrax We built it, uh, at Deloitte,

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incubated it within Deloitte, uh, within their Omnia AI practice.

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Uh, that's where Shelby and I met our third co-founder at

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R2 ai, Jonathan Wong, who was.

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The product lead and ran the product factory, uh, for, for

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Deloitte's AI practice there.

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Uh, and we developed, uh, what is now known as Arteria Uh, at

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Deloitte we were able to get a little bit of success, uh, with.

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With our banking clients and financial services clients, uh, through the

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Deloitte network and through our existing, uh, client base at, at Deloitte.

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Uh, and we're able to really incubate a product that really got to, uh, uh, A

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decent amount of, uh, product market fit.

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Uh, and we knew we had something here.

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We knew we needed to put the, the foot on the gas.

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Uh, and, and that really precipitated, uh, the spin out from Deloitte.

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So we ultimately left Deloitte.

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Uh, With a, with a, as a spin out.

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Um, and we were able to, we were able to do that and, and also to get, uh,

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VC funding, uh, shortly thereafter.

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So we did a series, uh, series A, uh, several months after we

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spun out from, from Deloitte.

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Uh, and that has really, Accelerated and, and propelled us in our journey

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as an independent company that still has a good, very good relationship with

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Deloitte, uh, and works closely with Deloitte in a lot of, uh, a lot of realms,

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although we are fully independent today.

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Uh, and that takes us to the, the journey that, uh, that we're on right now,

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uh, which is our, uh, second startup journey for, for Shelby and I, uh, and,

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uh, a little bit of a, uh, a return to our roots as, as entrepreneurs.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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Uh, you know, that journey

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is, is very, Telling.

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I mean, a lot of people fall into those types of situations where you start one

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thing, it gets acquired, it transforms into something different, and then

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spawns off a completely new industry or vertical that you're playing in.

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And you mentioned a number of, of pieces in there, but I'm really curious.

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For you to tell me about the Arteria AI vision and mission for

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improving client document processes, especially in the financial industry.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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Yeah, so our, our, our

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mandate is, is pretty simple.

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Uh, at the end of the day, uh, we want to.

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make Contracting and documentation processes frictionless.

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Uh, too often, especially in financial services, uh, these are manual processes

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that are rife with friction points, not just for, uh, for clients or

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customers of a financial institution, uh, but also bankers and those that are

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working within a financial institution.

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Documentation's often been forgotten and Digital transformation remains analog,

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and our mission is to ensure that.

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Documentation is frictionless and that we enable data flow within an organization.

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That's the second part of our mission and our mandate.

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Everything that we do is around data that, that comes from a little

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bit of our roots at Deloitte.

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Having spent, uh, uh, fair bit of time, uh, Devoted to, uh, developing

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and helping finance institutions with data related problems.

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We think about documentation in a very data oriented way.

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Uh, and you see that manifest in our company name Arteria AI as well.

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Uh, it's the, as some of.

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Some of you may have surmised already.

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It comes from the Latin root for, for artery, uh, and we think of data as

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being the vital lifeblood of a financial institution, really, of any organization,

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not not just financial institutions.

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Uh, and documents are these.

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These very important critical arteries that carry all of this

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data within an organization.

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And ultimately, the their documents are, are, are the basis for which

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relationships are formed within, uh, within humankind, but also within.

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Within financial institutions as well.

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Anytime a financial solution interacts with the customer, there's

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typically a document involved in data that's locked within that document.

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So we help to enable the flow of all of that data

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That is a big piece.

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I.

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was just Talking to a couple people today, actually one of,

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one of my good friends said,

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Hey, I sent a contract and an invoice over to somebody.

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I don't even know if they've looked at it.

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they said they can't read the banking stuff, but.

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I typed it in, so how can they not read it?

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That type of friction I could see where a product like Arteria AI streamlines

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that and gives you a little bit better understanding of your accounts receivables

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and what kind of other things may be going on, which makes it

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really one of the things that.

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I wanted to learn a little bit more about, and if you could please share

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with us more about the team behind Arteria AI and their experiences in

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legal and financial industries that, that really bring that to the forefront

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

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yeah, it's, it's a, this is one of the,

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my, my favorite teams that I've ever worked with in, uh, in my entire career.

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And we have very varying and diverse backgrounds, uh, and

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that helps us to think about.

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Clients differently.

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Think about client problems differently.

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Um, so you obviously have folks that have, uh, the legal background, myself,

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Shelby, uh, or our CEO is also, uh, an ex attorney back in her day, uh, former

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partner at a law firm in a previous life.

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Um, we've since moved on and then became data people, uh, through our

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time at at Deloitte and consultants.

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Uh, our team also consists of bankers, ex-bankers that have spent time.

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Dealing with documentation, really being, feeling the pain that that finance

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institutions are doing, uh, or feeling when they're dealing with documentation.

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So they've been on the front lines, they've experienced what, what,

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uh, what documentation means.

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They also understand what the impact is downstream of having

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better documentation processes.

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What does that enable for, for the institution?

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How, what does that enable for a customer?

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These are the types of things that.

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we're Able to to get, I myself have never worked at a financial institution.

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I've worked with financial institutions for my entire career, but, and have spent

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a lot of time on, on, on, in offices and, uh, head offices and, uh, a lot of

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boardrooms with financial institutions but never been on the other side.

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But we have.

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Bankers that work with us now, uh, on our team that provide that lens and

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are the advocates for the clients.

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And you really see that in our product.

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Uh, and then also from a technical perspective, we've been very

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fortunate to, uh, to be able to bring together, uh, really an

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incredible, uh, technical roster.

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Um, I mentioned our, our.

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Third co-founder Jonathan Wong's, also our cto, um, who ran the

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product factory at, uh, at Deloitte.

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We also have heading off our data science team that leads all

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of our AI initiatives, uh, Dr.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Amir Hajian who, uh, has spent his entire career working, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

on very complex, uh, problems.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And we're very lucky that he is chosen to make documentation, his problem

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

for, uh, for this period of time.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But he's.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Grew up, uh, as an astrophysicist, uh, as he likes to tell me he mapped

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the universe, uh, or was trying to map the universe in his previous life.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and we're just very fortunate to be able to, to have that caliber of thinker,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

that caliber of experience brought into the fold here and, and you really are able

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

to create some magical things when you bring such diverse backgrounds together.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and Put them in a room with a whiteboard, uh, and give them, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, a banking problem or a lending problem or a payments problem.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And all of a sudden, all these different perspectives are able to

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

really create something that's that's really unique and really magical.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

With that diverse of a group.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I mean that.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

is Amazing to have that kind of a group to work together.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Former bankers, former attorneys, astrophysicists.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

that is a crazy mixture of people.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

How, let me word it this way.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

What have been some of the biggest lessons that you and the

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Arteria AI team have learned?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Through the process, especially having such a diverse group of people looking

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

at things in a completely different way.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I'm really curious to understand what is the biggest thing you guys have learned?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It's a great question and something that's

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

particularly pointed for us because we actually spun out during the pandemic.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and so Arteria AI was created in, uh, October of 2020 as a, as a new entity.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and so we grew up in a virtual world that had to learn how to work

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

together in a virtual world and had to bring all of these diverse

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

viewpoints together in a virtual world.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and we had to do a lot of, work To, to, to be able to foster a culture

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and community in which you can really, uh, create the, the, the safety and

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the energy that'll, that you need in.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

order to Make something magical happen.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

By bringing these diverse viewpoints together, you can bring the best

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

people together around a table.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But in order to cultivate those ideas, you need to foster a culture of, of

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

trust, of belonging, and of community where you're all, uh, working together,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

rowing the boat in the same direction.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Communicating clearly where we all sort of understand what the, the ultimate

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

objectives are, what the ultimate mission is, what the ultimate client

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

pain points that we're solving for are And uh, and really building that type

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

of environment is critical and was critical for us in order to be successful

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

if we were just, Six or seven smart people sitting around a board table,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

um, going one at a time, raising ideas.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We probably wouldn't be where we are, but the fact that we're able to, to

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

build a community and, uh, and uh, a culture where we're able to share

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

ideas, be critical with each other, uh, in a empathetic way, uh, that

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

doesn't, uh, create, uh, friction.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

There's healthy.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

friction There will always be healthy friction within, uh, within

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

a successful startup and, uh, uh, and any product company, uh, but

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

ensuring that, that that's healthy.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

That's really what has been one of the big lessons and, and a

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

point of emphasis for us growing up in a pandemic oriented world.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

In the intro,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

, we talked about this being all new and growing in a pandemic world, being remote.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

that is definitely a challenge.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Have you learned anything special about and around the bank or

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

financial technologies that maybe you wouldn't have thought of before

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

as you've gone on that journey?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Oh, tons.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Tons.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And a lot of that is client driven.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, it's, uh, it's new and innovative use cases that we haven't thought

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

of, uh, because we're not there.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

On the ground, day to day that the financial institution is, uh, and they're

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

able to have the creativity and the, the wherewithal to look at what we offer,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

how we deliver it, and think about how it could be applied in a different way.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

When we first started out at, at Arteria we looked at financial institutions and we

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

had sketched out a list of what we saw as.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

about 50 different news cases for Arteria AI within financial institutions.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

If we were to do that exercise today and gather all the news cases, we

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

would be well into the hundreds.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We've learned so much.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and all of that has come, uh, through the, our, our clients

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and, and sitting with our clients and listening to our clients,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and also.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

What I talked about in terms of fostering an environment where you're able to

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

create something magical from a product perspective, you also have to build that

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

same relationship with your customers and your clients and build the, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the ability to have that trust where they're not looking at you as the, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

a salesperson that's walking in hawking

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the machine that does X, Y, and Z.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

They're thinking about a solution that can enable.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

A, B and C

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and maybe it can be applied in, in this way if we think about

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

it in a slightly different way.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

That's been one of the, the, the most exciting things, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

about the Arteria journey.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and I've personally learned a lot about financial.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

institutions The, the world of finance financial institutions is

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

constantly evolving and, and Covid played, uh, uh, very interesting

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

role in everyone's, uh, view and the priorities, uh, and uh, and all of that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And, uh, and we've been fortunate to, to be able to grow along that.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

If you had to pick one thing that is

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

the biggest lesson that you've learned with the financial institution and with

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

other, Banks or any FinTech that you've worked with, what would that like one

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

big one that you feel moved you to that

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

next level

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Oooh let me think about

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

that one for a second.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I promise you it's not a gotcha question.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

No, no, no.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

trying to drill in.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

I, yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

I'm, I'm, uh, I need to try to think of how to phrase it without

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

getting myself in trouble.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

See that darn legal background

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Is keeping us from

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

getting the real answer.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I see how it is.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Attorney.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Arbar barking away in the back there.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

. Um, uh, one lesson.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

So the biggest lesson that, that we've learned and this, uh, I think surprises

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

a lot of customers and institutions that we work with, is the fact that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

. Truly documentation has been forgotten in, uh, a lot of, uh, transformation

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

work in terms of processes, even in terms of resources and how it's handled

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and who does the documentation work.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

What we often come across is, Customers that think that they're not mature enough,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, and that every, they're behind, everyone else is, uh, is ahead of them.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But we work with some of the biggest institutions in the world.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We work with institutions that are less than a billion in

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

assets, uh, less than that are a couple hundred million in assets.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

They all have similar problems.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Everyone has documentation challenges Everyone Has neglected because

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

it's been neglected as an industry.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It hasn't been a focal point, and it's okay.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It's, uh, there's that, the maturity of this little niche that, that

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

we're in around documentation is, is.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Hasn't been there.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We're we, along with a couple of,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

other fit innovative fintechs are helping bring the, the financial

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

institutions along in that realm.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But it's never too early.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and you're never too far behind what anyone else is doing, no

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

matter how big or small or, uh, what shape or size that institution.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Look at how many times people are

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

announcing a, a digital transformation or they're announcing a new digital

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

product, or they're announcing all these different things, but yet they haven't

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

looked for efficiencies internally, especially with the documentation.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

And when you look at things like contracts, you look at

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

the pricing schedules.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

You look at all the different things that go around that.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

There's a ton of things you can extract out of the business to

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

understand how well you're doing and where the business is moving forward.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

That's kind of probably why Deloitte really was looking at, at this AI and

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

really focused on this piece of it.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Can you share with us the decision and what it was like when the decision to

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

spin off from Deloitte as a separate entity was decided, and how has that

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

contributed to the company's success?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Oh, Deloitte has been, uh, foundational.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

They, they, uh, they got this product started.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, they in invested in the, the initial bill.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

The really, the, the seed funding as it were would've come

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

from, uh, from, from Deloitte.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

There's.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Inherent limitations that come with working with, uh, and working

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

in, uh, one of, well, the largest professional services firm in, in the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

world, uh, but also one of the, the large audit firms, uh, in the world.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

One of the challenges that arises out of that, uh, becomes, um, how capital can be

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

raised, uh, and, uh, how cap tables can be shared between entities that, uh, that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

audit o other firms, uh, and, uh, and, and, uh, other shareholders work.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And, uh, the SEC takes a good, hard look at, uh, at all of that very, very closely.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Ultimately that, that was one of the big contributing factors was

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

thinking about as we take this product to the next level, uh, we

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

need to, uh, we need to invest in it.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, whether.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

it's In Deloitte, outside of Deloitte, whatever, in order to,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

to really start the hockey stick we need to, to, to pour some money in.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It would've been very difficult to do that within the Deloitte construct.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And that was one of the, uh, deep biggestest reason for looking for

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

alternative ways to, uh, to, to get the, the investment that we needed

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

in order to continue our, our growth trajectory and, and go beyond.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Deloitte was.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Immensely helpful in incubating our product, getting our initial clients.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

The Deloitte Network has always been,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

a big supporter of ours, uh, and continues to be like we, many of our,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, our, our leaders and, and staff are within the Deloitte Alumni Network.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and were in senior positions at Deloitte.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

I was a partner at Deloitte.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Jonathan, our cto, obviously ran the product factory.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Shelby Austin.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Our, our ceo, um, was the managing partner of the Omnia ai practice at, at Deloitte.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

So we have relationships, uh, and uh, and networks within Deloitte that

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

we still use on a, on a daily basis.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And they, uh, work with us, we work with them.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

I was just on the call this morning actually that came

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

through, uh, a Deloitte referral.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and that will never, never change, uh, that's just Our network is our

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

network and, uh, and they'll continue to, to, to be supportive of ours.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But, uh, we, we do maintain that independence now that helps us to, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

to really hit our, our full potential.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

So you've mentioned a couple times that,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

being a part of Deloitte kept you from raising outside funds and

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

keeping and, and having the SEC eyes on you around all that stuff.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

since the spinoff, how much have you guys raised since then?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

And are you expecting to raise more funds in the future.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

to clarify around the, the, the SEC

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

point, that's just a, a, an actual SEC independence rule around the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

what, the big four audit firms,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

what they can do and what sort of marketplace activities they

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

can, they can take part in.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It's less about the SEC watching us and more.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

about Literally, we, , Deloitte would not be able to do that,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and we would not be able to do

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

as Arteria Um, but as far as, uh, raises go and, and funding, uh, so shortly after

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

we, we spun out, uh, we did a series A, uh, that was led by, uh, a series

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

of, of FinTech oriented VCs, uh, that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

are Backed by, uh, by financial institutions from from around the world.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We've been fortunate to have great VCs, uh, that have been very supportive

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and have truly been partners and mentors, uh, along our journey.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, so, uh, in terms of, uh, numbers that, that's public, uh, that was, uh, an

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

11 million USD uh, series A that we did.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, The, we subsequently, uh, did a strategic round, uh, that wasn't a series

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

B, but something, uh, uh, post a, A uh, where, uh, Citibank and, uh, and bdc,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

business Development Bank of Canada, um, came on board as investors of ours.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

That was last summer.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and so we're, we're gearing up right now.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

In the, in an interesting climate, uh, where we have been fortunate to, uh, to,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

to withstand some of the, um, the, the headwinds that, uh, that unfortunately

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

some other tech companies, uh, have faced.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

in the last couple months, uh, we've managed to, to withstand that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And fingers crossed and knock on wood, are, are, uh, projecting

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

to, to, to come out of that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Okay.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And, uh, and.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

so We'll look at doing, uh, uh, some subsequent round, uh, in, in

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the near future, um, a, a series B.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

With the way that you help

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

financial institutions maximize,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

\ their revenues and same save time and cost,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

how does Arteria AI do those things?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

How do they maximize the revenue?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

How do they save time

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

And how do you save on costs?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

fundamentally what we are there to do

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

is to, uh, from a operational layer or a, uh, a day-to-day user of the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

product, Uh, is typically a, uh, a banker or a loan officer or someone

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

that's dealing with a customer.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, so we largely deal with customer documentation, uh, not

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

necessarily, uh, The procurement or vendor documentation, that's

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

typically a, a different discipline.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Anytime a financial decision is dealing with a customer, a, a revenue

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

generating activity, uh, that's where we come in to enable the, the data

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

flow, uh, and enable the documentation.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and what we do is we are built with, uh, Standard rest APIs throughout.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

it our general principle is we want to use, uh, as much data as possible that

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

already exists within a, the universe of an institution, whether that's

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

within their core or an LOS uh, or a homegrown data system of some kind.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

, use that data to generate a document of best fit.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

So that typically means mapping.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

The data elements that reside within a core or an LOS to a template library and

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

a clause library that sit within Arteria uh, to generate the, the T and C's or

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the document or the credit agreement.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Or you can go from anything as simple as an NDA My fee schedules could be complex,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

but they look relatively short and compact to complex syndicated loan documents.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We run the gamut in, in Arteria today.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, and we basically generate those documents automatically.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And so a loan officer or a banker or a trader, um, doesn't need to consult

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

a lawyer, have an Attorney, go and prepare the document where, um, where

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the document may go into the ether.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

while the attorney's working on it for a day a week.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Month.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We, we've, we've all been there where you send something to an

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

attorney to look at, and then four weeks later you're, you're wondering

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

if they've even gotten to it yet.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

That's the first bit of, uh, of automation and operational

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

efficiency and time savings.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

On top of that, we have a full negotiation and collaboration capability,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and that's where, uh, a lot of our AI comes in, uh, is around reading.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Markups red lines, changes that have been made either internally or externally.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

So if you need to change some terms or change parts of the document and

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

need to get approval internally, uh, we facilitate that through

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

our negotiation and collaboration module, or if there's markups from

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the counterparty or counterparties.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Those get, uh, accessed through that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

On all of that is Layered a structured data model.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and what that ultimately means is that the, uh, the bankers, uh, the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

attorneys, if they're involved, the approvers, they're all interacting with

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

something that looks and feels like.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

A document, so it's very familiar to them.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But what they're actually interacting with is structured data that's been

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

represented to look like a document.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

This is, uh, a little bit of our Deloitte roots meets our attorney roots melding

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

together in the product, uh, there's effectively two layers of the product.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

There's the, uh, I call it the surface layer that the, the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

users are interacting with.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

that An attorney would be familiar with something that looks and feels

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

similar to what they would typically do when they fire up Microsoft word and,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, and make changes to a document.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

For the engineers and the data people, there's a structured

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

data model underneath.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And so, as.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

The document is being manipulated, changed, uh, approvals go

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

through markups are made.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

The structured data model is capturing all of those changes that are happening.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And so once you ultimately execute the document or finalize the document, you

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

have a fully digitized representation of what's contained within that

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

document aligned to your data model?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

That can be sent back into your data sources or your, uh, core system

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

or LOS whatever the case may be.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and so that's, uh, that's the arterial blood flow of the, the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

data from within the document.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We send it back to the institution after the document's

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

been finalized and executed.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

So I've, I heard a number of systems

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

that you mentioned in there, and I, I'm only guessing that these

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

things aren't normally connected.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

They're very disconnected and disjointed.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

How?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

What kind of experience is this converting into for the clients and their

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

clients for this document management journey that you just discussed?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It, it's very much, uh, a journey that doesn't happen in isolation

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

of data teams, engineering teams, uh, and, uh, and really the, the.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

The infrastructure of an institution.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and so you think about documentation as being a neglected

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

part of the digital transformation.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It's also neglected as part of the, the infrastructure.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Often are, are, are working side by side with enterprise architects, um,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

who are thinking about the bigger picture from a data perspective, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and slotting the, the documentation in, uh, as part of that overall.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Infrastructure, vision and, and, and approach and, uh, what

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

they're architecting from an, from an infrastructure perspective.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

that's really fun, that that's really what gets a lot of juice outta, uh, the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

data flow at, at the end of the day, is.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Thinking about documentation as part and parcel of your data journey

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and your digital journey, if it happens in isolation as just a

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

discreet project that you're just focused on documentation by itself,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

there'll be tremendous operational efficiency for sure, and you'll

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

get a lot of benefit from that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But there's a potential, uh, opportunity that you're missing by not enabling the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

data flow in the way that you could.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

​ Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

example process of structuring data during the documentation

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

lifecycle that you just mentioned

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and how by doing that, that it speeds up the decision making for

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

all the stakeholders You'd mentioned using AI and a couple other things,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

walk us through what that that looks and feels like.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Sure.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, so I, I'll walk through a couple of, uh, of different examples.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Firstly, I'll, I'll walk through a, a, a data example, and then,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, I'll walk through an AI example, which is more around the,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the operational efficiency part.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

The data example.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, I'll, I'll use a simple example, but.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Commonly happens today with institutions of all sizes, um, is

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

around lending, for example, um, and within, uh, a loan origination system

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and everything that, that happens before the documents get prepared.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

You might have.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

An interest rate that's, uh, that, that has been agreed on by, uh, the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

borrower as well as the, the bankers and the loan officers, and a lot of work.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Then something happens where, uh, ultimately the document's produced,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

but now this interest rate needs to change within the document.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

What happens, uh, in the status quo is, that There's an LOS or a data element

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

within the LOS that has the old interest rate that generates, maybe generates

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

a document, uh, that's now a status document that reflects that interest rate.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Now, if that interest rate changes as part of the negotiation process or an

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

approval process that LOS has no way of knowing What the new interest rate is.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And that can have a tremendous impact from a servicing perspective.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Cause now you don't know what the, you're relying on somebody throwing up

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

a flight and manually fixing something that exists within the LOS and that

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

when you go and start to service and get to distribution on the loan, you're

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, you're doing it appropriately.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

So that's a simple example that leads to a large amount of risk and could have.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Potentially huge financial implications depending on the loan,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, through just one document, uh, that, uh, that could go awry,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I have to ask, what is an LOS

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

I loan origination system

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I just wanted to make sure that

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

myself and those listening that aren't familiar with the acronym,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah, yeah.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

um, get clarity on it.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

But you were getting ready to go on to the next one.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

So, uh, around artificial intelligence,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, one of the biggest challenges that exists around documentation

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

is what do you do with a document that you've never seen before?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

If you have, uh, a templated fee schedule, uh, credit agreement agencies that you use

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

that every single day, that's one thing.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But if you.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

If your counterparty proposes a new document or your attorney prepares a new

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

document where you're participating in

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

a loan agreement where you have a piece of the loan, but you're not the one that's

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

driving the, uh, the full agreement, you're not the agent bank within the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

loan, um, you are relying on consuming.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

What could be a very complex document and having to break that document

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

apart to feed into your data systems.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and what often happens today is.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Hand it over to Ted, Ted Abrigo, open up the document and, uh, on

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

their computer and start typing,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

, into the, the data system.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

What our AI does is, uh, it takes the document that's come in.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Scans it converts it into machine readable text.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And then using the models and uh, and algorithms that we've developed basically

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

breaks out that document into individual components and data elements that can.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Facilitate the entry of those data points, those specific data points that ultimately

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

need to go into your data systems.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

So it'll go and find the interest rate and pull that out so that you don't

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

need to find it within a huge 50 page document or a hundred page document.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and then secondly, automatically populate that, uh, that data element

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

within, uh, In, in the right format, uh, in alignment with your data model as well.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and that's a huge, uh, operational efficiency, uh, benefit.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It's a process that has been, uh, tackled in a very manual way today and still

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

is tackled in a very manual way today.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and using the, the artificial tone to really able to get a pretty

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

significant boost in that process.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Tell me about the track record of

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

success that Arteria AI is has had with some of the worlds Largest banks.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I can only imagine that these guys have have really taken

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

to it really, really well.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

And I would love to understand like, what kind of successes

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

have you had with these folks?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We've been very fortunate to, to have, uh, uh, a fair amount of success,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, particularly with the largest financial institutions in, in the world.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, I mentioned Citi as, uh, as one of our investors.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

They're also a, uh, a big partner of ours.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

They work, uh, We work with them in a number of different realms,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

both from a customer perspective, partner perspective, as

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

well as, uh, as an investor.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

So it's a multifaceted relationship.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, there, uh, and there's, uh, a number of firms of, of, of that elk that,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

that, uh, that we work closely with.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, that, uh, I, I wish I could name them all.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, unfortunately I'm bound by confidentiality

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

around many of them, so I'm

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

there's a reason why I said world's

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

largest banks, cuz uh, I didn't, I didn't wanna drag you into

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

getting into, you know, the, the attorney Abrar coming out yet again.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

No, no.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Citi it is a good one.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

And, and I've seen them do a lot of the things, like what you're talking

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

about is they, they find a technology that builds a ton of function

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

for them and they really like it.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

So to show support and really help things along, they go into the

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

investment route because it, well, it just makes sense for them to

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

get that technology moving forward.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And then that was the start of our journey was actually a little bit different than

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

what a lot of startups, uh, start with.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And that we tackled the, the top of the market, the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

largest firms in the world, uh,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

start a little bit lower

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

We, we started on hard dog.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and, uh, we, uh, our, our initial focus when we first, uh, started out

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

between, in the Deloitte days was really focused around the, the 30

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

globally systemically important banks.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And the, basically the 30 biggest banks in the world were our, our main priorities.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, but what

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

hard mode.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah, it, it was hard mode,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

but we, we were able to build a fair amount of success there.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But what we also quickly learned is, that the Same problems and the same principles

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

apply at all ends of the market.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and so now our, our client base is, is very diverse.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It cuts, cuts across, uh, all sorts of different sizes of its size of

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

institutions, um, from, uh, from, from regional banks to super regionals,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

to uh, to community banks as well.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And credit unions have the same issues and same problems that every institution

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

deals with documentation, uh, and has similar problems to, to what?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

To what the Citi's of the world are facing.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

So you go, it's from the 30

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

biggest banks out there, right?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

and then you realize, hey, the smaller institutions, the law,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

smaller companies need this too.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

what is the common thread between all of those that allowed you to

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

go down market after servicing the big 30 ish, um, and hard mode?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

What, what was it that allowed you to go, okay, well, I'm gonna

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

go into easy mode now, I guess.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

I I don't think there is an

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

easy mode, uh, when you're the,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

start up world

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Well, I mean,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But yeah,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

True.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

no, no, I know, I know what you're saying.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Ultimately, at the end of the day, um, our product is, is.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Document agnostic, industry agnostic.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, we've chosen to focus on, on financial services, and we think we're, we, we

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

do it pretty well, but there's nothing inherently about the product that makes

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

it more suitable for financial services or, uh, or for large institutions.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

There's maybe some more clear,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Extraordinary levels of ROI when you have complexity.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But that doesn't mean that there isn't ROI once if you, if your

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

complexity is scaled down a little bit.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and uh, for us, one of the big learnings that we had as we.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Moved, uh, into, uh, other market segments beyond the, the 30 largest

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

in the world, uh, is that our product was a little bit too big.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Not every institution needs every little belt bell and whistle that we

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

have and every module that we have.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, and really slimming it down to the problem set and the segment, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

was, was critical and it's an ongoing.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

journey That, that we're going down,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

we're developing and, and building new features and have a pretty

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

aggressive roadmap that, uh, that is really trying to solve for,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

for each of these market segments.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But we need to be thoughtful every time about how does this fit into

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

each of the individual, uh, market segments that we're serving.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

One of the big things that, that with,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

with my consulting company that we run into a lot are financial institutions

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

and other institutions looking for efficient and effective ways for

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

them to maintain compliance with regulations, rules, and a whole bunch

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

of other reporting characteristics.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

How.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

will Arteria AI help them in that process and or does it?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Oh, ab absolutely it does.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And this is, uh, this is where the attorney Abrar part of the, the

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

product comes out, comes out and shines

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

. I joke about it, but, but really, I,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

we get is that we do bring that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, the, the attorney perspective, the data perspective, and the AI perspective

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

because we have very unique backgrounds and haven't been in all three of

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

those realms, which is pretty unique.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But from a compliance and regulatory perspective that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Interestingly enough, one of the, uh, the initial, uh, events that really drove,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, the, the initial adoption and build of, of Arteria was around regulatory

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

events, uh, for financial institutions.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, whether it be for, um, For GDPR five years ago, uh, or for, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

for our friends across the pond.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Brexit was a, a, a big driver towards having to change large amounts

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

of contracts, uh, and having to repaper their contracts with their

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

customers and, uh, and everyone that they dealt with, um, and.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

so Not just in, in being able to accomplish that type of activity, um,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

was, was what we were doing, but we were also providing defensibility so that

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

when a regulator came and asked where they were on the remediation acti, when

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

an, where an institution was on the remediation activity, um, or to report on,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

The level of exposure that an institution has to, uh, to the LIBOR transition and,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, LIBOR interest rates being phased out.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

These are the types of things that you're able to capture and

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

report on, uh, with our audit trail and reporting capabilities.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

And was, uh, and still is one of the, the big, uh, the big usages of, of

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Arteria But, uh, it was particularly poignant in, uh, in some of our

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

early days when we were serving some of these regulatory activities

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

when they were at the forefront.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I'm gonna ask you to take off your regular

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

glasses and put on the glasses that allow you to see well into the future.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

What?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Potential opportunities do you see for Arteria AI in say the next five years?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

I, I honestly, I, I think that ar uh, that Arteria And, and documentation technology

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

as a category will be a category . Uh, and that's, I, and we, we, we laugh at

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

it now, but, uh, 15, 20 years ago, uh, before Salesforce made CRM uh, a category

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

CRM may have been a subset of content management or some other category,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

I think That is going to be, uh, something that we're, it's something that

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

we're already seeing a trend towards.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, and, uh, I, I, I like to think that we're already a global

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

leader in, in that category.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, and, uh, in particular with the focus on financial services, um, we

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

think we are headed down a path where we can be the ubiquitous documentation.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Platform and solution that everyone uses in financial services,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

uh, for, for documentation.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

So the Kleenex of documentation management

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

and contract artificial intelligence

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Ra ra rather than xeroxing it, you'll be Artiria Artiriaing it.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Ha ha.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I love it.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I love it.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Well, you know, we're coming to the end and, and I, I've warned the audience,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I shouldn't say warned, I foreshadowed with the audience this question,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

as a FinTech founder, what advice would

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

you give to others looking to either start or just starting their startup?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

yeah.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, from me and, and, uh, our perspective at, at Arteria we have a very, strong

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Leadership team, uh, and in particular our co-founders, uh, myself, Shelby

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Austin, Jonathan Wong, uh, as well as our, our, our senior staff.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Our, uh, the level of trust that we have is, uh, is exceptionally high.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, and that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Did not happen overnight.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It takes time to, to build that.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But that is something that has been critical to our success, uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and will continue to be critical to our success because we all.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Believe that we're gonna get through whatever we're we're going

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

through, whether it's the good or the bad, the ups and the downs.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, you want to trust the people that are in the boat with you and you want to

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

want to be in the boat with the people that that you're in the boat with.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

That's critical, not just in making sure you come out on the other

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

side when there's choppy waters.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

But It makes it more fun too when you're with people that you trust, uh, and work

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

well with and enjoy, uh, a laugh with, uh, as well as a tough conversation

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

with, um, having that type of trust, not just amongst co-founders, but also uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

amongst senior staff will get you through a, a lot of choppy waters that maybe

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

even experience and hoards of experience may not be able to get you through

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

So I'm gonna have to send you,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Simon Cenek did this really cool like diagram, um, based on the Navy

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Seals, and he interviewed a whole bunch of Navy Seals and asked them

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

what the most important things were.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

And they would rather have somebody who is not as good at the particular

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

task or role, but they trust implicit.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

implicitly And it's really cool to kind of see that, and it's

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

amazing to hear you bring that to it because trust is, is so fragile.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

It is,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

and, and it takes a lot of work, but.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

That is a big key to success, and I'm so happy to hear you say that.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Before we walk out, uh, or, or close up for the day, however you want to say

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

it, how can individuals or companies interested in working with Arteria

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

AI connect with you and the team?

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah, you can find, uh, you can find

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

us on LinkedIn, uh, at Arteria ai.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

You can find me on LinkedIn, uh, Arbar Huq um, or send me an

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

email, uh, to Arbar@Arteria.AI

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Fantastic.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I will go ahead and put those down in the notes down here, like way down here.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Um, so we'll go ahead and put those in.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Also, if you're listening where they'll be in the show notes as

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

well, so we'll make sure to have all those links really easy to get to it.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I'll also put the U R L.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

FinTech confidential Arteria AI um, for you guys all to go to as

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

well to find out more about Arteria and Abrar This has been fantastic.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

I love talking about data, so I, I geek out about this and like I

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

told you, pre-show, I have another 50 questions I wanted to ask, but

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

we don't have nearly the time.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Do you have any closing thoughts or comments about the future of FinTech

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Yeah, the future of FinTech is in

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

the, the hands of, of all of us.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Uh, and, um, it's, uh, it, it's, uh, There there'll be tough times,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and I think there's a particularly, uh, rocky time that, uh, that gets

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

through it, uh, that some people are going through right now and some many

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

fintechs are, are dealing with right now, uh, in the market, um, with

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

market conditions being what they are.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Um, but uh, Positivity, trust, uh, and, uh, and cohesion get

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

you through one way or another.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

I'm excited to be part of the FinTech community.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and ecosystem Uh,

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

and thank you for having me on the show Tedd Arbar

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

Arbar Thank you once again.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

This has been fantastic and I look forward to following Arteria AI on its journey

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

:

into the next five years and beyond.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Awesome.

Abrar Huq - Co-Founder & CRO Arteria AI:

:

Thanks Tedd

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About the Podcast

Fintech Confidential
Bringing you the people, Tech, and Companies that change how you pay and get paid.
Entertaining information focused on Fintech industry insights, market trends, news, and life stories from Fintech leaders, thinkers, and doers.

About your host

Profile picture for Tedd Huff

Tedd Huff

20 plus year veteran of Fintech, giving merchants and SaaS businesses control over their Payments destiny, global PSP/Payment Facilitator advisor.

💎 Founder/President of Diamond D3
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