Allevo and Bakken & Bæck successfully finalized the Whizzer project

Allevo, with the support of a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021, in the frame of the Program “SMEs Growth Romania”, successfully finalized the Whizzer project, as per the 2018/115906 contract, on November 29^th 2021. The project was implemented in Bucharest, with a total value of EUR 738.375, out of which EUR 420.000 non-refundable grant. As part of the Whizzer project, an open source software solution was developed, which offers financial operations as a service to SMEs, to help them automate and centralize common financial flows, at a very low cost: balance sheet, salary payments, invoicing, money flow automation, accounts payable and receivable, cash reporting. The target group includes banks, financial service providers and SMEs across Europe, with focus on SMEs. The project includes an artificial intelligence component that ensures a detailed analysis of processed data, which facilitates the reconciliation of sent or received invoices with payments or collections. This component is designed and developed by Bakken & Bæck AS, a company with advanced AI capability. This partnership is possible through the bilateral relationships between Norway and Romania, promoted by the financing program. The partnership helped Allevo to benefit from the complementary skillset of the partner’s team, to build a relevant solution for the financial industry. The outcomes are:

1. An open source software solution license (GPL v3) developed by the promoter that offers financial operations as a service to SMEs, to help them automate and centralize common financial flows, at a very low cost: balance sheet, salary payments, invoicing, money flow automation, accounts payable and receivable, cash reporting;
2. Permanent full-time jobs created: 4 positions covering: 1 analyst, 1 developer, 1 tester, 1 deployment engineer;
3. An estimated growth in turnover of 28% by 2023 compared to 2018;
4. An estimated growth in profit of 66% by 2023 compared to 2018.

The project started from the need to increase the rate of financial inclusion, by addressing the ecosystem (banks, financial service providers and SMEs across Europe), with focus on SMEs, in terms of technical harmonization and communication on top of a well-built open banking layer. The Whizzer project created a user friendly financial reporting tool for those SMEs who run a large enough volume of operations to require an application to aggregate data, but which cannot afford the investment in software sold by big global providers. The project was promoted even while it was ongoing, ensuring an early dissemination of results to institutions able to offer support in creating awareness and driving adoption of the application by as many SMEs as possible. These institutions, banks, corporates or universities, were targeted to also create momentum for the future collective development of the application, after the project is finalized. The source code is published in Github and is available via the https://fintp.org/ portal. The documentation is available on fintp.org. These dissemination elements are also accessible starting form Allevo website: https://allevo.ro/products/whizzer-project/. Furthermore, the project has been disseminated in a large number of market relevant publications and events, as per the communication and wide dissemination plan. Part of the 2021 series of events was facilitated by associations and IT clusters like: Magurele Science Park, Asociatia Trezorierilor din Romania, Transilvania IT Cluster. Allevo is now looking for a partner to host the application and offer it as a service to SMEs. Supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021, in the frame of the Programme “SMEs Growth Romania”, operated by Innovation Norway.