Inicio AI – SuperTech offers the runway for success
Rachel Curtis, Co-Founder of Inicio, is a former banking COO who saw the need to create a consumer led use case for agentic AI. Chatbots were being deployed for operational savings but without focusing on the consumer experience, but a colleagues experience with a very vulnerable, in-debt pregnant woman led the founding team to the real potential for use in debt situations. Embarrassment in such situations, where people do need support but are very wary of asking for it, provided a strong reason for using AI - at a highly charged emotional time, where many people actively avoid addressing the situation, it can easily snowball to catastrophe without appropriate intervention and support.
Inicio provides AI income and expenditure support so that people can understand their financial position, without the need to speak to a human, as well as flagging potential areas where they may be able to claim more benefits.
Supporting growth at pace and scale
SuperTech started working with Inicio AI during the fragile, early stage in their journey, when they knew the product worked but were struggling to get a company to go first and use it.
““From day one of engaging with everyone within SuperTech, they have supported Inicio by delivering the right programmes, at the right time, in the right way. Their founder-first approach met our evolving needs at every stage, turning early ambition into sustainable growth. For example, the Innovation Lab accelerator in partnership with BNP Paribas Personal Finance and STEAMhouse provided the opportunity to live-test a new proposition back in 2024, and that early product validation was essential in our next steps as a business.””
Product validation: Through the BNP Paribas Innovation Lab, run in partnership with SuperTech and STEAMhouse, Inicio AI had access to a large organisation that ordinarily would be more difficult to engage and were able to create an innovation platform to try and test their solution.
Funding networks: From a funding perspective, introductions from SuperTech and access to experts within their ecosystem gave us the runway to enter the “One to Win” competition and a Seed funding round of £2.86 million has now been closed, including funding from the WMCA.
Awareness: Through the SuperTech ecosystem, Inicio AI has been involved in appropriate events and Innovation Challenges, such as the Consumer Duty FRIL with FinTech Scotland, enabling a greater profile and exposure and providing the opportunity to work with other financial services providers such as Advance Credit Union and Moneyline as well as working and collaborating with other technology companies involved in the programme.
“Joining the FRIL programme and being part of a FinTech ecosystem focused on delivering against Consumer Duty regulation was a further pivotal moment for us, as we could not only explore collaborations with a variety of financial services providers, but also partnerships with other innovative FinTechs who were very open to engage.”
SuperTech has empowered Inicio AI – sales and funding has not been a linear journey but the people and connections that have been made and the support in finding the right people has been invaluable.
What advice do you have for those starting their Founder journey?
Take up offers of introductions from your relevant cluster organisation like SuperTech – follow the conversations to achieve your goals.
Find a way to show traction and sales as early as possible. Unlocking that proof is so valuable to achieve greater pace and scale.
What next for Inicio AI
We will shortly be launching our next gen virtual agent to support consumers and businesses even more through vulnerability detection and alternative languages. We’ll also continue to build effective partnerships working with tech and financial services providers to solve a broader range of problems.
“SuperTech continues to provide us with opportunities to engage in the regional ecosystem, through events and roundtables and we look forward to our next steps as part of this exciting and dynamic community."