Attunely

Attunely Inc. is a Seattle-based company that applies machine learning to accounts receivable management (ARM) and revenue cycle management. Its cloud-based platform ingests debt account records, de-identified consumer interaction histories and additional inputs such as macroeconomic trends to score accounts and prescribe outreach tactics across the servicing and delinquency lifecycle. The company states its scoring services do not require personally identifiable information.

The platform is organized around a set of dynamic scoring models: a propensity-to-pay model producing an account-level probability of payment that updates with each interaction; a liquidation model combining behavioral signals with a client's historical transaction data to estimate expected recovery value; a time-of-day model that generates a dialer-ready call file matching high-yield accounts to preferred contact windows; an omnichannel model that ranks communication channels per account; and a settlement optimization model that estimates the likelihood, timing and value of recovery to inform settlement, payment plan or paid-in-full offers. Attunely also provides reporting and analytics tools for customers to monitor and optimize performance in real time, and designs its product to integrate with existing customer IT infrastructure and workflows.

Attunely was spun out of Seattle startup studio Pioneer Square Labs. It announced commercial availability of its platform at the Receivables Management Association annual conference in Las Vegas, targeting a market described as over 4,000 third-party collection agencies, debt buyers and collection law firms.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Scott Ferris was previously corporate vice president of digital ventures at Starbucks and an executive at advertising network aQuantive, which Microsoft acquired for $6 billion in 2007. At aQuantive he met Mike Galgon, another former aQuantive executive who became a managing director at Pioneer Square Labs, the studio from which Attunely was spun out. Before commercial launch, the company spent about a year partnering with third-party agencies and debt buyers to design its supervised learning algorithms and real-time account valuation model.

Business model

Attunely sells a cloud-based machine learning and analytics platform to creditors, lenders, collection agencies, debt buyers and revenue cycle management firms, scoring accounts and prescribing outreach to improve recovery rates and operating margins. The software is built to integrate with customers' existing IT systems and workflows, and the company has also pursued cooperative channel partnerships with embedded technology vendors to distribute its platform.

Attunely provides its machine learning scoring and analytics platform as a cloud-based service to ARM industry clients, positioning value around increased recovery rates, reduced outreach expense, lower churn and improved operating margins.

Traction

Attunely made its platform commercially available to the ARM industry after design partnerships with several third-party agencies and debt buyers, training on data from more than 100 million historical consumer interactions. In September 2020 the company reported 16 employees and was hiring; a later company profile lists 17 total employees. Customers who publicly described results include Account Management Services, CBE Companies and Stoneleigh Recovery Associates. Management said 2020 brought a surge in demand from creditors and recovery agencies seeking to optimize revenue recovery amid call center resource constraints.

Latest developments

In September 2020 Attunely announced a $6 million Series A round from Framework Venture Partners, Anthos Capital, Vulcan Capital and other investors, taking total financing to $9 million. Proceeds were earmarked for hiring in data science, data and security engineering, client success, product and program management, and marketing. Framework Venture Partners partner Andrew Lugsdin joined the board. During the COVID-19 period employees took salary cuts, but the company avoided layoffs.