Affiniti Raises $17M for AI-Powered Small Business Finance

One firm recently obtained a new round of investment to realize its goal for an “AI CFO.” The organization is hoping that AI agents will become a vital tool for the 33 million small enterprises in the country.

Affiniti, an AI fintech firm, just raised $17 million in a round headed by SignalFire. The company is developing AI agents that function as small business CFOs. In some businesses, the agent might offer specific financial advice.

According to exclusive information obtained by Business Insider, the finance firm Affiniti recently received a $17 million Series A headed by SignalFire. The fundraising round also included participation from Chelsea Football Club star Trevoh Chalobah, Rocket Money creator Yahya Mokhtarzada, Morning Brew founder Austin Rief, Contrarian Thinking Capital, Sequel, Indicator Ventures, Lightshed Ventures, and RiverPark Ventures, among other angel investors.

Affiniti, a fintech platform based in New York, was founded in 2021 and caters to small and medium-sized enterprises, who, according to the Chamber of Commerce, account for 99.9% of all businesses in the US, employ almost half of all Americans, and generate 43.5% of the country’s GDP.

Even though SMBs account for the great majority of US businesses, Aaron Bai and Sahil Phadnis, co founders of Affiniti, felt that these companies lacked the tools necessary to thrive and survive: a platform that would track spending and savings and provide financial analytics that would help them make better business decisions.

Together with $11 million in early capital, the two launched Affiniti in November 2024 with its first offerings: a small-business credit card and an expenditure management platform.

Affiniti was the first fintech that many SMBs had ever dealt with, according to Phadnis, who was onboarding their first clients. Furthermore, a lot of businesses lacked finance staff and desired extra technological tools to assist in completing activities that would normally be performed by a chief financial officer or finance team.

AI agents were beginning to gain popularity in Silicon Valley at the same time. An “AI CFO” that oversees all facets of a business’s finances, including banking, bill payment, sales, and more, was made possible by the technology.

Phadnis informed BI that because Affiniti is virtualized across various industries, it can offer SMBs in the healthcare, financial, automotive, and other sectors targeted financial advice.

Phadnis further the understanding and what’s going on in AI across verticals has allowed us to stay innovative, from planning out how our agent can co-pilot a pharmacy’s financial decisions to using LLMs to analyze financials internally to assess a business’s financial health.

The highly regulated financial sector has been slower to use AI agents than other sectors like advertising and sales. Last year, Hebbia raised $130 million from A16z to aid lawyers and bankers with investment research using AI agents. A business called Auquan, which is also using AI bots for research, raised $8 million earlier this year.

Phadnis stated that Affiniti’s future priorities are data and customer acquisition.

“The true strength of AI agents comes from the quality of data they are trained on,” he stated. “By positioning ourselves as the primary financial platform for managing all aspects of an SMB’s finances, we can uniquely develop highly accurate AI CFOs tailored to each specific SMB sector we serve.”