Startup Raises $3.7 Million to Offer Agencies Access to Machine Learning Decision Engine

A Seattle-based startup studio has spun out a company that offers a machine learning decision engine to help collection agencies score accounts and predict the best communication method.

The company, called Attunely, received $3.7 million in seed funding from a handful of angle investors and venture capital firms.

Attunely is run by Scott Ferris, who most recently was corporate vice president of digital ventures at Starbucks, and includes eight other employees, including three co-founders who were employees at the startup studio — Pioneer Square Labs — that incubated the company.

Similar to how TrueAccord uses machine learning and data about how customers interact with the company’s website, emails and other communications to determine settlement offers and the best time and method to communicate with someone, Attunely wants to help collection agencies use their data more efficiently, Ferris said in a published report.

Attunely wants to “help lift the industry and the whole ecosystem,” Ferris said. “We seem to be one of the first companies building a highly-scalable platform, whereas other tech companies are going after the agency business and are trying to be a new agency.”

Too often, Ferris said in the report, collection agencies use “the same playbook” for all debtors, and Attunely will take its 100 million customer interactions to offer more customized and specific ideas to help agencies collect.

The company has 15 beta customers, according to the report.