Itoflow Raises £1.8m Pre-Seed to Give Investment Firms Their Own AI Research Team

Investment firms have access to enormous amounts of financial data, but turning that information into useful research, risk analysis and portfolio decisions can require expensive teams and complex infrastructure.

London-based Itoflow wants to change that. The fintech startup has raised £1.8 million in pre-seed funding, led by Balderton Capital, with angel investors including Barney Hussey-Yeo, founder and CEO of Cleo.

Founded in 2026, Itoflow is building AI agents that learn how individual investment firms research opportunities, manage risk and review portfolios.

Turning an investment strategy into AI workflows

The idea behind Itoflow is different from simply giving investors access to another AI chatbot.

Investment teams can describe their investment approach, risk constraints and review criteria in plain English. Itoflow's agents then turn those instructions into governed workflows that can conduct quantitative research, run backtests and continuously monitor portfolios.

The platform is designed to work across global markets and asset classes including equities, bonds, ETFs, commodities and digital assets.

Importantly, Itoflow does not impose its own investment philosophy. Instead, it aims to automate the process each firm already uses while keeping humans in control of important decisions.

Institutional customers can also deploy the technology within their own infrastructure, helping keep sensitive financial data and proprietary investment strategies inside their environment.

Why investors are backing AI for finance

For founders and investors, Itoflow represents an interesting shift in financial technology. AI is moving beyond basic productivity tools and into areas where sophisticated firms have traditionally invested heavily in people and infrastructure.

Co-founder and CEO Aditya Jha spent nine years working in quantitative research at J.P. Morgan, RBC and Tower Research Capital, where he was Business Head for Mid-Frequency Trading. The wider founding team also brings experience from Google, Apple and Microsoft.

Balderton Principal Sivesh Sukumar believes Itoflow could make sophisticated systematic investment capabilities accessible to more firms, rather than limiting them to the largest investment organisations.

The new funding will support engineering and quantitative research hiring, product development and commercial and regulatory work. Itoflow is already running pilots with hedge funds and family offices globally, while discussions are underway with exchanges, brokerages and financial-data providers.

For Itoflow, the opportunity is significant. If its AI agents can reliably automate parts of investment research without taking control away from portfolio managers, the company could help smaller investment teams access capabilities that were previously expensive to build.

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