In this episode, Sunny Ray talks with Anna Raafat, co-founder of Incivio, a Swiss fintech startup building an agentic financial guidance layer for trading platforms and crypto exchanges. Anna traces her path from studying economics to working in monetary policy at the Swiss National Bank, then into consulting at Deloitte, before joining a Cardano-based lending marketplace where she met her future co-founders. That experience exposed her to blockchain tokenization and AI-driven credit risk models, sparking her passion for closing the knowledge gap between complex financial products and everyday users. She explains how Incivio uses three AI models, a clustering model, a RAG-based large language model, and a reinforcement learning model, to detect when users are stuck on a platform and deliver personalized nudges, tooltips, or educational content in real time. The conversation covers her Bitcoin and AI awakening moments, why fintech executives respond to Incivio's revenue-driven pitch, and how the company's lightweight, no-code integration removes friction for product teams. Anna closes by encouraging listeners to pursue meaningful change and pointing them to her LinkedIn and Incivio's website.
A former Swiss National Bank economist explains how AI nudges turn confused fintech users into confident, active traders.
Can you give a one-liner on what your company does?
We're building an agentic financial guidance layer that boosts transaction volume for fintech platforms like trading platforms and crypto exchanges. It sits on top of these platforms and helps users move from confusion to action, so businesses get more value out of the users they've already acquired through marketing.
Tell us about your backstory and how you arrived here.
I grew up in France but I'm German and now Swiss. I studied economics, then worked in monetary policy at the Swiss National Bank. I wanted more impact, so I joined Deloitte in consulting, then a Cardano-based lending marketplace where I met my now co-founders Gassan and Felix. That experience led us to start Incivio together.
What excited you about decentralization and blockchain technology?
What excited me was giving everyone full power over their own data, being able to control it and share it with whomever they want, whether in finance or even healthcare. I also saw a huge knowledge gap between the access people have to complex tools like Bitcoin or stablecoins and what they actually understand, which can hurt both individuals and businesses.
What do most people miss or misunderstand about Bitcoin?
I think it's not that deep, it's simply complex because it's not tangible. If you just trade dollars into Bitcoin on a neobank it's simple, but once you go deeper into being on-chain, wallets, and conversions, the barrier to entry is high. That intangibility is what makes it feel complicated to people.
How did you first get exposed to AI before it went mainstream?
I was lucky. My co-founder Gassan is a data scientist I met at university in 2013, and he was already talking about machine learning and big data back then. At our former lending marketplace he built a credit risk model using alternative data like Google reviews and Facebook pages to assess default risk beyond standard balance sheets, which excited me because it could democratize access to finance.
Can you walk me through how Incivio actually detects and helps a stuck user?
We add a simple line of code on top of any web application. Three AI models, a clustering model, a RAG-based large language model, and a reinforcement learning model, read anonymized user behavior to see where someone is struggling, like lingering on a chart or hovering over a buy button. We then predict what content they need and push a nudge, popup, or tooltip with educational or actionable content right in that environment.
When you pitch chief revenue officers, what makes them light up?
We're revenue-driven, targeting transaction volume or average revenue per user, which is usually their top KPI. They get excited because we help them get more out of users they already paid to acquire, and because it doesn't touch the product, so there's no need to fight for space on an engineering team's backlog.
Where can people learn more about you and Incivio?
You can always follow me on LinkedIn, I'm happy to connect with like-minded people who want to innovate in this space. You can also check out our website, Incivio.com, to learn more about what we're building.
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