Deck, a startup that claims to build “Plaid for the rest of the Internet”, collected $ 12 million in the A -Series financing round – about nine months after closing his Seed financingOnly TechCrunch says.
The recent increase, led by Infinity Ventures, brings a total waist from Montreal, raised from the moment of establishment from January 2024 to $ 16.5 million. Golden Ventures and Better Tomorrow Ventures led the seed increase.
Deck He claims that he is building infrastructure for access to data for user-in the whole Internet. His data agents based on the browser “unlock” data from any site via automation.
To put it simply, Deck helps users connect any online account and goals to rework information into structured, useful data, with the full consent of the user.
President Frederick Lavoie, General Director of Yves-Gabiel Leboeuf and Cto Bruno Lambert (pictured above, from left to right) co-founder) Deck in June 2024
The startup approach is to treat the network itself as an open platform. It works under the assumption that users have “plenty of valuable data” blocked behind the names of users, passwords and portals based on sessions without a possible way of secure sharing.
Deck hopes to vary it.
“Like Plaid, he gave programmers an easy, safe way to access the bank account data with the user’s consent, Deck does the same for 95% of platforms that do not offer API interfaces, such as public utilities, e-commerce backends, payroll systems and government services,” said Leboeuf. Its purpose is to assist programmers access data that users already have without all manual work
When the user connects the account, the Deck infrastructure supports every thing behind the scenes. His agents AI log in, navigate and separate the data “just like a man – but faster, more reliable and on a scale,” Leboeuf said.
Then he generates scenarios so that these connections are live and reusable without AI’s commitment.
“Companies use deck to eliminate friction after downloading user data from places where API interfaces do not exist – or are incomplete, expensive or unbelievable,” said Leboeuf. “Basically,” ify-iFy “all websites. Regardless of whether you run accounting, kyc, automating reporting or verify the company, DECK allows you to build these functions within a few minutes instead of months. “
Repeat the founders
Leboeuf and Lavoie had previously began Flinks, a startup, which was called “a box for Canada”. The National Bank of Canada purchased it in 2021 for about 140 million USD. (Lambert was one of Flinks’s first engineers.)
After this sale, the founders began to check with entrepreneurs in various industries.
“We heard the same time and again: our data is broken,” said Leboeuf.
One founder had tens of millions of food for sale of food trapped in dozens of “awkward” distributors’ portals. The following months tried to access the license fees – to assist users get a billion unpaid tant.
“We even experienced a first -hand problem,” said Lavoie. “The pattern was clear: access to data was crushed, fragile and unsuccessful – and not only in banking. It was everywhere.”
So they built a deck with which he competes today (*12*)ArcadiaThe company whose founders tried to make use of but frustrated.
Trio believes that the last development of artificial intelligence (AI) emphasized the urgency of open access to non -financial data. Without this, AI is threatened with training in the field of outdated, biased or incomplete information.
Initially, the company focused on cooperation with public utilities, connecting with over 100,000 public service providers in over 40 countries in North America, Europe and Asia. Customers include EnergyCapIN SquareAND Green. Deck also cooperates with customers unrelated to land, resembling notes.fm, GLOWTIFY and EVIVE SMOOTHIES. He believes that his technology will be used for any industry in which the data is “trapped” on online accounts.
“Think about us as a bridge between the application layer and basic tools, such as the automation of the browser or AI operators, such as a playwright, using the browser, Openai operator,” said Leboeuf. “We took sloppy, fundamental elements – authentication, data normalization, speed limiting, consent and protection of the axes – and transformed them into a liquid, product platform.”
Rapid growth
According to the founders, Deck saw the number of programmers building on his platform “You grow drastically” over the past few months. For example, in February, his connections increased by over 120% in comparison with the previous month. The startup valuation model is based on efficiency, burdening customers based on “successful” API connections.
“This means that you pay only when the data operate,” said Lavoie.
Like Plaid and Flinks, Deck is based solely on the user’s clear consent to attach and collect data.
“Although hypothetically violates some conditions, our technology is in line with the international open trend, which has been initiated and significantly popularized by open banking, and pushed regulatory organs around the world to explain several jurisdiction that consumers and companies have the right to access and send their data,” Leboeuf said.
Deck also claims that he has reserved technologies to avoid labeling bots or employees. These technologies include several different methods, resembling vision processing and mouse movement just like humans.
“While we see many antibota technologies in sectors such as Telcos or HR, in which there are many frauds of identity theft, many other data divisions were not limited to any antibotal technologies,” said Lavoie.
For now, it does not use data collection for models, as an alternative, it focuses on building the best technique to collect data, not building products in addition to the data collected.
“We operate in a double consent environment in which we would need the consent of the end user and the consent of the Deck client to use data,” said Leboeuf.
The company is planning to start out soon Data Pionic CreatorWhich, he claims, will allow each programmer to “launch and run in search of any data division for each industry … in a short time.”
Currently, Deck has 30 employees.
Jeremy Jonker, a co -founder and managing partner at Infinity Ventures, believes that the Deck “transforms” the data sector permitted by the user, “just like open banking transformed into financial data.”
“Thanks to the modular platform and reusable regulations, they provide speed, reliability and adaptability, which go much beyond the media,” said Techcrunch. Jonker joined the Deck Board as part of financing.
Unfolded projects, together with previous supporters of Better Tomorrow Ventures, Golden and Luga Capital also participated in the financing of the A.