“We’ve come to understand that any system is just as good as the input it gets”, it says on the website of the startup Next Gate Tech. For Silicon Luxembourg, the company’s CTO & Co-founder Semin Ibisevic breaks it down for us what this company, that had 4 employees in 2019, 13 in 2020, and 25 today, exactly does.
“I would even say this sentence is the foundation of our entire business. Clean and harmonized datasets are far from being the standard in the fund industry. Before launching Next Gate Tech, we were managing an AIFM management company for a family office and were confronted with the same challenge faced by our clients: fragmented, non-standardized, unstructured data. Data has been the fund industry’s biggest pain point for too long, yet it is asset managers’ most valuable asset”, says Ibisevic.
He explains how the entire industry relies on relatively old fashioned technology that can’t be easily upgraded – “As a fintech, we use the latest technology and knowledge in terms of cloud infrastructure and data analytics, combined with market expertise, to ensure our solution meets clients’ expectations in a timely manner.”
Machine learning has, since the very beginning, been at the core of what they do. They use different models and analytics approaches in our entire architecture, spread across the entire flow; from the data management into the analytics to the intelligent process automation.
The main goal of the business, says Ibisevic, is “Data Management-as-a-Service. Good quality data is at the core of any great process. The clean data generated by our solution can then be used by our clients to automate oversight duties such as NAV oversight or portfolio manager oversight, allowing them to free up time and resources to concentrate on their core business.” He emphasizes how Luxembourg had a vital role to play in their development.
“[…] become the golden source of data and the “go to” solution for analytics and process automation across the entire funds industry value chain.”
Semin Ibisevic
“We continue to heavily invest in machine learning and data science talents, attracting them to Luxembourg to help us achieve our ambition. Our office is based in Luxembourg. Luxembourg being the second largest investment fund domicile in the world after the USA, this is where we need to be. For sure, we are growing and are looking to establish other European offices in 2022-23, with Ireland and the UK likely to be high on the list”, he says.
Regarding fintech and the future, Ibisevic has a vision of how things are going to evolve. He explains that in Next Gate Tech they look for more efficient and effective solutions – using technology – that make more sense for the business needs today, especially in the back-office and middle-office areas.
“Some fintechs will succeed, some will fail; this will depend on their mindset, the technology they use, the skills they have and, above all, will depend on the readiness of the market to embrace the new technologies they will develop. Finally, there is a core element that is often forgotten which will define a fintech’s ability to succeed: it needs a team that combines Front-to-Back market expertise, deep technology knowledge and data scientist skills. We are proud to have all those profiles within our company”, he says about how the market and technology is evolving.
The startup is very clear on their short-term and long-term plans, and they all revolve around Luxembourg.
“Our main focus today is to deploy our solution to more clients and continue to develop our technology to become the golden source of data and the “go to” solution for analytics and process automation across the entire funds industry value chain. For the future? We want to provide the best technology to our clients and facilitate a step change across fund industry operations, in Luxembourg and abroad”, concludes Ibisevic.
