About ARIADNE
Ariadne builds on decades of experience in financial leadership, customer success, and technology. It was founded by Willi Brammertz, creator of a major enterprise risk and finance solution (exit) and pioneer of the ACTUS open-source financial standard. Based on First Principles, Ariadne provides foundational new technology for financial analysis and risk, and a universal product engine for traditional finance, capital markets, fintechs and DLT.
AnalytX: Unified analytics architecture for finance and risk that spans from basic accounting to advanced financial modeling.
SolitX: Universal product engine – configure and life cycle management of any financial product, from savings to loans to SWAPS to CDOs.
Agentic Finance: Ariadne is the computational layer for agentic finance. It enables agents to negotiate, compute, verify, and execute financial agreements using deterministic SolitX processing and AnalytX risk analysis.
Team
Willi Brammertz – Founder
Shirish Kalangi – Co-Founder
Jonas Brammertz – Head of Product
Ralf Kubli – Strategy & Customers
Daniel Imfeld – Co-founder & Advisor
Why “ARIADNE”
Despite hundreds of billions spent on tech infrastructure in finance brute force reconciliation problems persist, AI initiaves fail due to massive data problems, and no safe path to replace legacy is in sight. As a result, no one dares to touch old ‘core tech’ for fear of breaking the bank.
Finance is in dire need for a fundamental rethinking of the IT architecture for financial applications. The team at Ariadne is convinced that only a fundamental rethinking on First Principles will bring about a step change in system performance, overcoming the decades of mistakes in IT architecture focusing on data alone, and ignoring the critical element of the algorithmic definitions of payment obligations.
The financial contract must be at the center of IT architecture in finance. Just as Ariadne's red thread guided Theseus through the labyrinth of Crete, ARIADNE provides the digital thread that guides financial institutions through the labyrinth of modern finance.
The financial contract is the red thread.
Ariadne starts with the fundamental element of finance—the financial contract—and uses it to connect cash flows, risk, valuation, accounting, regulation, tokenization, and AI into one coherent framework. The financial contract becomes the thread that leads through the financial labyrinth.
The red thread of Ariadne was a deterministic path through uncertainty; ARIADNE Financial Technology provides the deterministic logic layer that allows humans and AI agents to navigate the finance and build effective and efficient financial applications.
Academia
Ariadne is pleased to participate in the Quant Finance program at ETH and the University of Zurich, which ranks 4th globally in the Risk.net ranking published in December 2025. The ETH–UZH MSc in Quantitative Finance was established to close an important gap between finance and advanced mathematics. This program consistently ranks among the top 10 worldwide and top 2 in Europe, according to rankings.
Since 2009, Willi Brammertz, the founder of Ariadne, has served as a lecturer in the Quant Finance Program, leading the "Risk & Finance Lab." In this role, he guides students in bridging theoretical concepts with practical applications in finance. For the past ten years, Ariadne has provided its state-of-the-art simulation engine AnalytX (based on the Open-Source ACTUS Financial Standard www.actusfrf.org) for use by students.
Publications
The team at Ariadne publishes blog posts and thought leadership on topics in finance, financial analysis, risk and tokenization.
- Willi Brammertz list of publications: https://www.brammertz-consulting.ch/publications-and-events/articles/
- Willi Brammertz Book: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119206071
- Ralf Kubli: https://medium.com/@RRKUBLI
- Bibliography related to ACTUS, finance, risk, AI, tokenization: https://www.zotero.org/groups/6594222/ariadne_bibliography/library
History
2026
Ariadne implements world leading leasing application for publicly listed company
2025
UZH-ETH Quantitative Finance program ranked Number 4 globally and Number 1 in Europe.
Several FMIs building DLT based infrastructure enter MOUs with Ariadne for 24/7 life-cycle management, near real-time NAV calculations and financial risk management
2024
SolitX becomes a key infrastructure piece for tokenizing financial instruments on scale – USD5 billion leasing book tokenized
2023
UZH-ETH Quantitative Finance program ranked Number 7 globally
Willi Brammertz and UZH-ETH Quant Finance Students model SVB collapse solely based on publicly available call reports and established the failure could have been known at earlier points in time thanks to normalized data and simulations based on the ACTUS standard.
2022
SolitX released as the next generation universal financial product engine – any financial product can simply be configured and verified based on the ACTUS Standard
2021
AnalytX used in Banks, Insurance Companies and Pension Funds
2020
Ariadne cloud native mortgage solutions offered as BaaS by large, regulated cloud infrastructure providers
2019
Swisscom Banking Innovation Radar recognizes Ariadne as an innovation leader
2017
Ariadne builds the world’s first blockchain/DLT based core banking application - Starting point of SolitX
2015
Ariadne Business Analytics AG is founded by Willi Brammertz, Shirish Kalangi and Daniel Imfeld
Development is based on the ACTUS standard and strictly based on First Principles
2013
The ACTUS Foundation is founded
2012
Willi Brammertz and co-authors publish the landmark book: Unified Financial Analysis – the Missing Link in Finance
2010
Allan Mendelowitz and Willi Brammertz meet at U.S. Treasury Department during the Great Financial Crisis.
The idea of an open-source algorithmic financial standard enabling systemic risk management is born.
FRS Global is acquired by Wolters Kluwer Financial Services.
2009
Willi Brammertz designs and starts teaching the “Risk & Finance Lab” for the UZH-ETH Quant Finance Program
2008
Sale of IRIS to FRS Global. RiskPro has over 300 clients globally in Treasury, Finance, Risk, ALM and sophisticated planning. Willi Brammertz advises financial institutions and governments on financial risk
2000s
IRIS and RiskPro become synonymous with high-quality financial analysis and risk management solutions and consulting. IRIS employs over 100 developers.
1992
The Firm IRIS Integrated Risk Management is founded by Willi Brammertz and associates. Development and commercialization of RiskPro – one of the first and most successful ALM products for financial analysis and risk
1991
Willi Brammertz publishes PhD on Data and Analysis for Risk Management in Financial Institutions
1990
After implementing cutting-edge risk systems in banks, Willi Brammertz rethinks financial analysis from first principles.
He starts his PhD thesis, “Datengrundlage und Analyseinstrumente für das Risikomanagement eines Finanzinstitutes” (Data foundations and analytical instruments for the risk management of a financial institution)
1989
Implementation of an Asset Liability Management solution at Sal. Oppenheim Bank in Cologne, Germany
1988
First implementation of an external Asset Liability Management software solution at Bausparkasse Wüstenroth, Germany’s leading mortgage lender
1987
Willi Brammertz leaves academia to join Winter Partners, where he leads work on an Asset & Liability Management tool and begins identifying common mathematical structures across financial products