Nubank acquires AI-for-banks startup Hyperplane
Just seven months after announcing a $6 million seed funding round, Hyperplane, a San Francisco-based data intelligence startup that is building foundation models for banks, announced Wednesday that it has been acquired by Brazil's Nubank.
Hyperplane was founded in 2022 by Daniel Silva, Felipe Lamounier, Rohan Ramanath and Felipe Meneses. When the company launched out of stealth last year, Ramanath explained that the main focus was to build a personalization layer for banks across the world. "The goal for Hyperplane is, if banks across the world have a lot of first-party data, what does it take to build a data intelligence layer so that banks can plug in their first-party data?”
Hyperplane focused on allowing banks to train their own models to power tools across their risk, collections and marketing departments.
Now, the team will continue this work at Nubank, the largest digital banking platform outside of Asia, which reported revenues of over $2.7 billion last quarter. Nubank has more than 100 million customers in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, which, in the context of this acquisition, also means that it has more banking data to help it power personalized services than virtually any other company.
"Nubank's mission since its founding is to fight complexity and empower fanatical customers," said Nubank CEO and founder David Velez in Tuesday's announcement. "Our early investments in AI, coupled with the impressive infrastructure and talent that Hyperplane team has been able to put together, will accelerate our mission. Consumers globally will access not only the very best financial products but also receive truly customized financial advice that empowers them to live a better life."
Over the years, Nubank has made several tech-focused acquisitions, including Clojure consultancy Cognitect in 2020, digital broker Easynvest later that year and AI-powered financial management startup Olivia in late 2021, its first AI-centric acquisition.
The two companies did not disclose the price of the acquisition. Hyperplane's $6 million seed funding round included investments from Lachy Groom, SV Angel, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Liquid2 Ventures, Crestone VC, Soma Capital, Latitud and Atman Capital.
"There are fundamental investments a financial platform has to make to execute on AI. Nubank is the perfect home to accelerate our vision of hyper-personalized consumer banking because of the maturity of their data stack and a culture of innovation," said Hyperplane co-founder Lamounier.
