The year that was: a look back on 2019
Tags: Birthday, 2019, Fintech, Startup, Credit

Today, we turn six years old.

A major milestone for Aire and a well timed birthday for a bit of New Year reflection. And while we have big ambitions for an important and impactful 2020, we’re also grateful for the year that was.

So what did we get up to? Here’s a summary:

A new funding round landed in February…

We closed our Series B round of funding in early February. Backed by European enterprise VC Crane Venture Partners, with strategic investments from Experian Ventures, Orange Digital Ventures, White Star Capital and Heartcore, this significant investment has been crucial in helping us grow sustainably this year.

… as did a reseller agreement with Experian.

Combining our own credit insights with Experian’s bureau and decisioning services, we signed a reseller agreement with the bureau last year. An important partnership that demonstrates the value in additional insight we can provide for Experian clients, in turn exposing us to a number of lenders who can benefit from our product in the future.

We joined new initiatives…

We were delighted to be selected for Tech Nation’s Future Fifty programme — a powerful network of the UK’s top fifty leading late-stage tech companies. Alongside the likes of Starling and MarketFinance, our selection onto the programme in March was an accolade we were incredibly proud to receive.

… and grew important partnerships.

We’ve continued to work with with global brands such as Toyota Financial Services and N Brown — brilliant, innovative companies who have placed commercial value in understanding their customers better by using credit insights from Aire. We look forward to continuing, and extending, these relationships in 2020.

We continued to expand our team…

We made a whole lot of brilliant hires across the business, bolstering our Executive Team with the addition of Fred Becker (COO) and Anjna Rughani (VP of People) as well as formalising new areas of the business: from Operations and Customer Success to Marketing and Communications.

… as well as our external expertise.

Central to Aire is our absolute commitment to knowledge and expertise. One way we’ve done this is through our Aire Fellows: experienced industry leaders who offer strategic advice to Aire on an advisory basis. This year, we’ve continued to expand this group, which now constitutes a number of credit risk and lending professionals across the financial services industry.

We launched into the US…

Hot on the tails of our Series B funding announcement, we officially launched stateside and over the past few months, we’ve racked up the Aire-miles to prove it! This realised a long-term vision for the company, Aire having always been built to solve global, not just UK, financial exclusion. Putting roots down in the US this year has therefore been an exciting first step on our expansion journey.

…and continued to build out our awareness.

Both stateside and here in the UK, we spoke at, attended and exhibited at a huge number of events. Some of our highlights were LendIt, FinTECH Talents, DC FinTech Week and Wired Smarter and we’re looking forward to getting back on the events circuit in the Spring.

So, as we step boldly into 2020 and embark on a brand new decade, we look forward to sharing with you plenty more of our milestones.

Remember, the problem we’re solving isn’t an easy one — it will take us time.

But with each new hire, and each new partnership, we get that bit closer to our mission of delivering credit where it’s due to everyone, fairly and without bias or discrimination. Join us: aire.io/careers