AI startup Filament Syfter raises $4.8M to fix the broken data stack in private equity

Private equity and investment banking firms sit on mountains of data—from deal flow and market intel to internal CRM notes—but most of it goes to waste. Over the past decade, firms have spent heavily on digital tools, yet still struggle to connect the dots in a meaningful way. CRMs are siloed. Proprietary data is underutilized. And sourcing the right deals often feels more like guesswork than strategy.

That’s the gap Filament Syfter is trying to close.

The London-based startup, founded by Phil Westcott (former European Director of IBM Watson), has built an AI-enabled data engine that helps dealmakers actually use their data. It centralizes, enriches, and operationalizes information across platforms, helping private market firms surface better-fit deals, strengthen relationships, and make faster decisions.

The pitch is resonating. Filament Syfter just secured up to $4.8 million in Series A funding, led by FINTOP Capital. The new capital will go toward expanding the company’s footprint in global private markets and accelerating product development.

“Most firms have spent precious time and resources deploying CRMs and other technologies over the past decade, but still lack the ability to harmonize and enrich their data ecosystem at scale,” said Rick Kushel, Managing Partner at FINTOP Capital. “Filament Syfter is filling that gap.”

The product isn’t just another AI sales tool. It’s been purpose-built for private equity and investment banking use cases, where proprietary insights and speed matter. Clients like Astorg, Inflexion, and Cavendish are already using the platform to sharpen their sourcing and improve returns on existing tech stacks.

Westcott, who has assembled a team of data engineers, NLP, and machine learning pros, saw firsthand how firms struggled to train AI models on their own messy internal data. That’s what led him to launch Filament Syfter: a platform that lets firms curate, own, and scale their own AI capabilities without needing to build from scratch.

“Having FINTOP’s investment, financial services industry specialization, and operational leadership will undoubtedly enable Filament Syfter to scale worldwide,” Westcott said. “Given their track record investing in best-of-breed technology for dealmakers, we are thrilled to have their endorsement.”

FINTOP’s Chris Haley and Max Haskin will join Filament Syfter’s board as part of the deal.

With private markets more competitive than ever, and AI adoption heating up across the industry, Filament Syfter is betting that the future of dealmaking belongs to firms that can actually make use of the data they already have.