EA Ventures Plug and Play EMEA Fund – a venture fund created by Kazakhstan’s EA Group together with Silicon Valley’s Plug and Play Tech Center — has announced its first deal in Europe. The fund invested €150,000 in the British-Spanish startup Sax AI, which develops solutions to automate client onboarding for investment banks.
The total volume of the investment round reached €1.5 million, with participation from European funds Bynd and Athos Capital.
Sax AI is an autonomous artificial intelligence agent designed to replace Know Your Business (KYB) staff, cutting personnel costs by up to 90% — on average around $37 million annually for a single bank. The solution is applied in M&A and lending processes and is integrated into the workflows of Front Officers and Quality Managers, while meeting AML/CTF requirements.
According to Adilbek Kamiev, head of EA Ventures Plug and Play EMEA Fund, Sax AI addresses one of the most pressing challenges in investment banking:
We see in Sax AI not just a promising AI product, but a systemic solution to one of the most expensive problems in the investment banking market — the onboarding process. The team has received excellent recommendations from customers and industry experts, and the product itself has strong potential for scaling and re-sales.
The EA Ventures Plug and Play EMEA Fund was launched in spring 2025 in Spain. It invests between €150,000 and €500,000 in pre-seed to pre-Series A technology startups, with a focus on fintech, artificial intelligence, and cloud-based B2B solutions.
Founded in June 2024, Sax AI is headquartered in London and Spain. The startup is already negotiating with European banks and plans to use new investments to expand its team, advance product development, and prepare for a Series A round in 2026.
