Cigno was founded by Philippe Reynier (CEO), Nicolas Lagrèze (COO), and Vahan Avetisyan (CTO and Head of R&D). The Geneva-based startup automates the full consulting workflow, from research and data gathering through to structured recommendations, via multi-step workflows that replicate how consultants actually operate.
The platform is built on a proprietary reasoning model and specialised agents. It targets a gap the founders see as systemic: generic large language models are not fit for professional consulting, given weak deliverable quality, unreliable data, no standardisation, and data sovereignty risks.
Swiss Finance as Anchor Market
Cigno's first commercial wave has a clear sector focus. «Our first wave of consulting clients has a strong financial services practice in Switzerland and Europe,» Reynier told finews. «Their end clients are overwhelmingly Swiss and European banks, insurers and asset managers. Cigno is the AI infrastructure that enables these firms to deliver better and faster for their FS clients.»
The startup is incorporated as a Swiss entity with a sovereign-by-design architecture — European hosting, full client data isolation, and compliance infrastructure. Reynier describes this as «a prerequisite for Swiss financial institutions, and for the consultants who advise them.»
