Ukrainian-French fintech company Aiffin has joined the 16th cohort of Moove Lab, an accelerator for the mobility and automotive industries based at the Station F startup campus in Paris. Over the next four months, the team plans to expand its partner network, raise capital, and launch integrations and pilot projects.
Aiffin is developing an AI platform to automate financing for micro and small businesses. The company currently specializes in leasing finance for cars and commercial vehicles in France.
According to the company, more than 130 deals worth over €4 million in total have already been financed through its platform. Around 60 dealers have joined its B2B platform.
Joining the accelerator on the second attempt
The Moove Lab selection process includes an online application, initial screening, an interview, and a product presentation. The accelerator team evaluates the business model, technology, market, track record, and scaling potential.
Aiffin was accepted into the program on its second attempt. As co-founder and Chief Product Technology Officer Ihor Nikolaiev explained, before reapplying, the team changed its positioning: instead of presenting a digital leasing product, it introduced a platform in which artificial intelligence is at the core of borrower assessment and financing decision preparation.
The platform analyzes not only standard credit data, but also bank transactions, links between companies and counterparties, business behavior, and vehicle information. Aiffin has built tools for dealers and financial partners around this functionality.
According to Nikolaiev, the combination of fintech, data, and automotive financing aligned with Moove Lab’s focus. The company has also received confirmation of its innovative company status — entreprise innovante — from France’s Ministry of Economy and Finance and is part of the La French Tech ecosystem.
Participation in Moove Lab does not involve a direct investment in Aiffin or the transfer of an equity stake to the accelerator. Instead, the team gains access to corporate partners, financial institutions, and funds, as well as support in adapting its positioning to the French market, developing its sales strategy, and preparing for negotiations with large companies and investors.
For the duration of the program, Aiffin has identified three main goals:
- raise funding;
- expand sales through partner networks;
- secure agreements on specific integrations and pilot projects.
How the platform works
Aiffin’s end customers are entrepreneurs, micro and small businesses, drivers, and fleet owners who need vehicles for work. According to Nikolaiev, some of these customers find it difficult to pass traditional bank scoring due to a short financial history, a non-standard profile, or insufficient data.
Applications can be submitted directly through the platform or via a dealer. In the first case, the customer selects a vehicle, completes an application, undergoes identity and business verification, and provides documents and banking data through Open Banking. In the second case, the dealer creates a deal for a specific vehicle, sends the customer a link, and tracks the review status in its own dashboard.
The system checks the application against predefined rules and risk indicators. AI analyzes documents and verification results, identifies potential risk signals, and explains the factors that influenced the assessment. If the application passes scoring, the customer receives confirmation and proceeds to finalization, including a contract prepared automatically.
According to the co-founder, an automated decision on the website takes up to about one minute. At the same time, the overall processing time depends on how quickly the customer completes the application and provides the required data. Applications with conflicting signals or additional questions are referred to a credit specialist for manual review.
Aiffin combines its own risk models and rules with third-party AI models. The system verifies the individual and the company, analyzes bank transactions, documents, links with counterparties, vehicle data, and its value. Artificial intelligence also extracts structured data from PDFs and images, processes bank statements, and generates comments for the credit specialist.
The assessment result can be provided to a partner through a personal dashboard, a PDF report, or an API. Nikolaiev estimates that the information prepared by the system enables a specialist to review an application in detail within 10 minutes.
The company claims a fivefold increase in credit specialist productivity — from a maximum of 10 to 50 applications per day. According to Nikolaiev, the cost of services for a single scoring assessment is less than €5 and decreases as the number of checks increases. This amount does not include personnel costs.
Across a portfolio of approximately 130 financed customers, Aiffin recorded three defaults, or around 2.3%. The company does not disclose AUC/Gini scoring model accuracy metrics, citing its relatively small portfolio.
Funding and future plans
Aiffin finances leasing deals itself: it raises capital, buys vehicles, and leases them to customers. The company’s main revenue comes from lease payments and the margin between the cost of raised funds and portfolio returns.
In July 2026, Aiffin announced that it had raised €3.1 million in funding at a valuation of €30 million. Of this amount, €625,000 was equity investment, while €2.5 million was debt financing for leasing deals.
The company directs equity investment toward its team, development, scoring, infrastructure, marketing, legal support, and operations. Debt financing is used to fund vehicles leased to customers.
Aiffin is now seeking a financial partner or group of partners to raise at least €20–30 million for vehicle financing. At the same time, the company is negotiating its next equity investment round. The funds are planned to be used to expand the technology team, develop AI scoring and the SaaS platform, and prepare a white-label solution for partners.
Legally, Aiffin is registered in Paris. The company employs more than 15 people, around half of whom are Ukrainians. The Ukrainian part of the team primarily handles development, while French specialists are responsible for the dealer network, sales, and local partner engagement.
In the near future, Aiffin plans to develop its API, scoring, financial widgets, and SaaS platform. According to Nikolaiev, the company has already signed partnerships with Tide, BYD, Volvo, and Polestar, and is also developing cooperation with other automotive brands and dealer networks.
After closing its seed round, Aiffin also plans to obtain a financial institution license in France in order to expand its range of services, including opening accounts for customers. Among potential next markets, the company is considering Spain, Germany, and later the United States, although France remains the priority.
“At the same time, entering new countries is not our priority right now. The French market is large enough to scale within it, and we do not see a demand problem here.”
Ihor Nikolaiev, co-founder and Chief Product Technology Officer of Aiffin
