Anti-money Laundering Software Startup Tookitaki Raises $11.7 Million in Series A Funding The company is planning its next fundraising in early 2021, its CEO told Entrepreneur Asia Pacific
By Aparajita Saxena •
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Anti-money laundering software maker Tookitaki has raised $11.7 million from a series A funding round led by Viola Fintech, and SIG Asia Investment, among others, and said it plans to raise its next round in early 2021.
The Singapore-based company that develops machine learning-based financial compliance software said the funds it raised will be used to drive its expansion into the U.S. and Europe - the next markets the company is targeting.
"..we are in active engagements with a number of financial institutions in the US," Tookitaki's chief executive officer, Abhishek Chatterjee, told Entrepreneur Asia Pacific in an interview.
The company said the lack of brand visibility and difficulty in hiring local talent were some of the impediments it was facing expanding to the U.S.
Navigating the country's stringent financial regulations was another.
"One issue that regulated firms face is that they need to explain to their regulators how the systems they use make determinations. This is not easy with systems that use machine learning, which sometimes resemble the proverbial "black box'," Chatterjee said.
But a positive pilot execution with one of its partners helped the company prove its model to the regulators.
In Singapore, Tookitaki has partnered with one of the country's biggest banks, United Overseas, to develop a next-gen anti-money laundering compliance solution.
The company is yet to generate a profit, it told Entrepreneur Asia Pacific, but its revenue has increased over 300 per cent over the last two years.
Apart from expanding into the U.S. and Europe, Tookitaki said it will look to grow its research and development teams in Singapore and India, it said in a press release, and appointed former LinkedIn director, Subhas Samanta, as vice president of R&D.
Along with the current investment, the company has raised $20.5 million in over seven funding rounds, according to Crunchbase. Its seed round saw participation from Jungle Ventures, a prominent VC firm whose portfolio includes Pomelo, RedDoorz, and iflix.
