ALT/AVE (www.altave.co.uk), the London-based RegTech startup that uses distributed ledger technology to combat the masses of paper waste in banking, today announces that it has raised a combined total of £535,000 in new growth capital.

The investment comes via an Innovate UK grant, in addition to an injection of pre-seed funding, backed by a group of notable investors combining decades of experience at the top of global finance.  

Innovate UK awarded ALT/AVE £148,000 (70% of which is a grant), in the form of a Smart Grant - which, as well as being welcome financial support, is an invaluable seal of approval from the UK’s innovation agency and will be used to further product development and expand the company’s offering. 

The group of key investors providing £387,000 of pre-seed capital, includes:

• Phil Shelley, recently appointed ALT/AVE Chairman, formerly of UBS, Goldman Sachs and Barclays, as well as founder of Arlington Capital Markets.

• Jens-Peter Stein, formerly of Stone Milliner Asset Management and Morgan Stanley. 

• Philipp Eberle, formerly VP at Barclays Investment Bank, now at Appital and PKE Capital; 

• Brian Guckian, formerly Head of Equities at SEB and now Appital, Astrum Partners (Waporta);

• Jon Gausen, investor and formerly of Deutsche Bank; 

• Preben Ramm, ex-director at UBS and ex-Portfolio Manager at Millennium Capital Management, and is now a Portfolio Manager with Graham Capital Management; 

• Peter Landin, formerly of SEB, now a banker and investor in Singapore.

The pool of investors and their backing recognises the quality and effectiveness of ALT/AVE’s core product, docStribute, which utilises distributed ledger technology to offer banks and other regulated institutions a secure and sustainable digital solution for distributing highly regulated documents to their customers. When implemented, it will result in a 95% reduction in paper usage, a 25g decrease in CO2e per document compared to postal delivery, and cut costs by as much as 70%.

ALT/AVE is on a mission to change the way all regulated financial institutions including banks and insurance companies operate, and how they communicate with their customers. docStribute uses the Hedera Hashgraph network (https://hedera.com) to allow banks and other regulated institutions to communicate information to customers that fall under FCA regulation. The cost of non-compliance is high, yet ALT/AVE’s revolutionary application of distributed ledger technology meets all regulatory frameworks and keeps institutions in line with governance protocol, but also manages to significantly reduce  costs, waste, and emissions for its users.

Chris Ansara, founder and CEO at ALT/AVE comments: “At ALT/AVE, we have all worked in financial services and we saw first-hand how much paper is wasted in banking. How banks communicate with customers is closely regulated - for good reason - however, institutions are so fearful of non-compliance that modern technology is wildly underutilised. Ultimately, this means the sector continues to waste paper, and have a negative impact on our planet.

“This funding will aid further development of the existing product and enable us to continue our push into new territories, extending the deployment of the technology, and research in what direction we may take docStribute next. To receive funding from Innovate UK is a welcome and appreciated nod from the UK’s innovation agency that RegTech, and ALT/AVE specifically, is well-positioned to tackle head on the challenges faced by the financial sector.”

Brian Guckian, formerly Head of Equities at SEB and now Appital, Astrum Partners, and an investor, comments: “The financial sector constantly adapts to challenges and it’s that ability - to overcome - that makes it the bedrock of the global economy. One such challenge is how to reduce the sector’s carbon footprint, something we all have a responsibility to do. The way that ALT/AVE have harnessed the potential of distributed ledger technology to create docStribute, shows there is another way possible in how financial institutions communicate with their customers.”