AML Startup Announces $5.4 Million in Series A Funding Round

Auckland-based anti-money laundering startup First AML has announced that it has received $5.4 million in a Series A funding round led by U.S.-based Bedrock Capital and with support from Pushpay founder Chris Heaslip and Icehouse Ventures, both of whom are existing investors in the company.

Enterprises in the fintech, legal, real estate and accounting industries can use First AML’s regulatory technology platform to help streamline their anti-money laundering (AML) compliance efforts.

Conducting AML and KYC compliance processes is of growing importance in the fintech industry, and is a particularly important part of business in the United States, where the Patriot Act requires U.S.-based fintech institutions to implement certain AML/KYC standards.

“Bedrock is delighted to lead one of the largest Series A financing rounds in New Zealand for First AML,” said Bedrock managing partner Geoff Lewis. “The company has built a unique technology solution that is upending profoundly antiquated AML compliance processes, while also delivering dramatic efficiency improvements and cost savings to customers.”

First AML’s Customer Due Diligence platform provides an end-to-end automated identity verification solution for customer onboarding that gives companies more visibility and management oversights over the entire process and reduces the risk of money laundering.

“Our plans to accelerate global market expansion and product development have just got a whole lot bigger,” said First AML co-founder Milan Cooper. “Interest from customers in countries like Australia and the US is heating up as businesses look to prepare for the new regulatory requirements, and we are now well placed to capture these opportunities and offer the world’s best AML compliance platform thanks to our new investment partners at Bedrock.”

First AML expects to release a new version of its platform later this month that will feature improvements to its biometric identification and remote verification tools, as well as a new visual tool that will be aimed at helping make complex company structures easier to understand for users.

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September 18, 2020 – by Tony Bitzionis