As banks face growing pressure to improve efficiency without significantly expanding headcount, investor interest is increasingly shifting toward AI platforms capable of automating operational workloads. Saris is positioning itself at the centre of that trend, securing fresh funding to help financial institutions automate lending, compliance and back-office processes through agentic AI technology.
Saris has raised $28.8 million in new funding to expand its AI-powered banking automation platform, with the round led by 8VC and supported by Audacious Ventures, Homebrew, Btech Consortium and Service Ventures.
The funding will be used to broaden the company’s reach across financial institutions, deepen integrations with major banking technology providers including Fiserv, Encompass and MeridianLink, and scale the teams responsible for deploying and training AI agents.
Banks and credit unions continue to grapple with operational bottlenecks across lending, compliance and servicing functions, where manual document reviews, repetitive data entry and administrative processes still consume significant employee time. These inefficiencies have become increasingly difficult to sustain as institutions seek to improve customer experiences while controlling costs.
Saris has developed an agentic AI platform designed specifically for financial institutions, automating workflows that traditionally required substantial human intervention. According to the company, its technology can automate up to 70% of tasks across consumer, mortgage and commercial lending operations while reducing operating costs by as much as 35%.
The platform is designed to work alongside existing banking systems rather than replace them, allowing institutions to automate complex workflows without large-scale technology migrations. Saris reports that some customers have more than doubled operational output while maintaining existing staffing levels.
The funding reflects growing investor confidence in agentic AI applications for banking, particularly solutions focused on operational efficiency and workflow automation. While much of the industry’s AI attention has centred on customer-facing experiences, institutions are increasingly looking inward to modernise back-office functions where significant productivity gains remain untapped.
Growing Demand for Operational AI
The investment also highlights a broader shift in banking technology spending. Financial institutions are moving beyond AI experimentation and increasingly prioritising solutions that deliver measurable returns through workflow automation, faster processing times and reduced operational costs.
As competitive pressures continue to rise, platforms capable of integrating directly into existing banking environments while automating routine tasks are becoming a key focus area for both banks and technology investors.
What this means for the industry
- AI investment is increasingly shifting from customer-facing applications to operational and back-office automation.
- Banks are prioritising AI projects with measurable efficiency gains and clear return on investment.
- Agentic AI platforms are emerging as a new category of banking technology focused on automating end-to-end workflows.
- Integration with existing core banking and lending systems is becoming a critical success factor for AI adoption.
- Financial institutions may increasingly use AI to scale operations without proportionally increasing headcount.
