The SaaS CFO · Ben Murray
podcastplaybookHeka Raises $16M to Open Source Finance Data for Global Financial Institutions
Source excerpt
About The SaaS CFOOn this episode of The SaaS CFO Podcast, host Ben Murray sits down with Idan Bar-Dov, co-founder and CEO of Heka. Idan shares his unique journey from working in finance and law—starting out at an international law firm advising fintech companies—through the challenges of founding a startup during the pandemic, to leading a fast-growing SaaS company transforming how financial institutions use open source data. Together, they dive into Heka’s evolution from its early focus on reconnecting consumers with their assets amid widespread data gaps, to becoming a global platform that provides advanced fraud detection, contact recovery, and enriched credit decisioning for major banks, fintechs, payment processors, and alternative lenders. Idan also opens up about the company's fundraising milestones, lessons learned from raising $16 million to date, building credibility with Fortune 500 clients,…
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What a founder can learn
Founder takeaway
Start with a narrow, costly customer problem, then expand into adjacent use cases that reuse the same core capability. Heka’s evolution from reconnecting consumers with assets to fraud detection, contact recovery, and credit decisioning illustrates how one data foundation can support a broader enterprise platform.
Why it matters
For founders selling to large financial institutions, a focused entry point can make the initial value proposition easier to prove, while adjacent applications can deepen customer value and create a larger market without abandoning the company’s core advantage.