Daniel Kjellén and Fredrik Hedberg, the duo behind open banking unicorn Tink, have resurfaced with a new venture. Their latest company, Freda, marks a pivot into AI-powered compliance tools for the financial sector.
Tink reached a valuation of $1.8 billion when Visa acquired it in 2021. Now the founders have set their sights on a different problem: the crushing weight of regulatory paperwork that financial institutions face daily.
Freda tackles anti-money laundering and due diligence tasks. The startup claims its platform can automate up to 90 percent of routine compliance workflows, freeing analysts to focus on actual risk assessment rather than form-filling.
The company entered stealth mode quietly, building its product without external funding. That bootstrap approach mirrors the founders’ early days at Tink, before venture capital poured in.
Meanwhile, the compliance landscape keeps shifting. European regulators introduced a sweeping AML package in 2024, and national watchdogs continue tightening requirements. As a result, banks and fintechs find themselves drowning in new obligations.
Kjellén put it bluntly: “We saw an opportunity to rethink compliance, to stop treating it as a cost center and start building something that actually helps banks.”
Hedberg echoed that sentiment, describing the current state of compliance software as “decades old, painfully slow, and built for a world that no longer exists.”
Freda’s pitch centers on speed and adaptability. Instead of legacy systems that require months of customization, the startup offers a product that plugs into existing bank infrastructure quickly.
The founders believe their timing matters. Regulatory pressure has intensified across Europe, and labor shortages in compliance roles have forced institutions to look for alternatives.
“We’re not building a chat interface, we’re building infrastructure that understands the messy reality of financial data,” Hedberg explained. The product ingests transaction records, customer files, and external databases before flagging anomalies.
Freda uses language models to parse documents and extract relevant details automatically. The system then generates risk summaries that human reviewers can approve or reject.
The startup remains small, with a team focused entirely on product development. No outside investors have joined yet. That independence gives the founders room to iterate without quarterly growth demands.
Banks across the Nordics have already shown interest, according to the company. Several pilot programs are underway, though Freda declined to name specific institutions.
The compliance automation market has grown crowded. Competitors range from established players like ComplyAdvantage to newer entrants building on large language models. However, Freda’s founders argue their background building Tink’s infrastructure gives them an edge in understanding bank requirements.
The road ahead involves proving the technology works at scale. If the pilots succeed, Freda plans to expand beyond the Nordics into broader European markets within the next year.
