• Led by AV8 Ventures, the round will see Elucidate consolidate its position as the leading financial crime risk management platform.
• The pandemic has sparked a dramatic increase in financial crime, exacerbated by growing instability in Eastern Europe.
• Elucidate has rated over 20,000 organizations since it was founded in 2018, setting a regulated benchmark to help the sector effectively counter surging financial crime. 
• Financial institutions recognizing the need for a global financial crime risk benchmark have already partnered with Elucidate, including investors Raiffeisen Bank International and Banco de Investimento Global.

Elucidate, a financial crime risk management platform, has raised $8 million in a funding round led by AV8 Ventures, alongside Elevator Ventures, the corporate venture capital entity of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) and Tommy Nicholas, Founder and CEO of Alloy. Existing investors APEX Ventures, Frontline Ventures, BiG Start Ventures and SixThirty Ventures, also participated.

The funding comes at a critical time for the financial sector. Overall financial crime has skyrocketed during the COVID pandemic. Geopolitical instability in Eastern Europe and the introduction of sanctions targeting Russia have highlighted the broader challenge financial institutions face when trying to identify and assess financial crime. Fraud and money laundering activities remain largely unmitigated and on the rise, with organizations relying on manual and outdated processes to counter financial crime. 

Shane Riedel, co-founder and CEO of Elucidate, said the investment comes at an integral moment for the company as it prepares to scale-up activities. "The Ukraine-Russia conflict and the complexity banks have faced implementing the most recent sanctions has, once again, revealed the sheer scale of financial crime risk banks can find themselves exposed to when they lack the proper tools.

A global reset in how we manage financial crime is needed. Elucidate, with our vision to rid the Earth of financial crime, is leading this trend by demonstrating how technology can be leveraged to set a global benchmark for financial crime risk management.”

Riedel continued, “This funding validates the vital work we are doing, strengthens our position in the market and shows that especially in this current era of geopolitical instability, the financial community is calling for innovative tech solutions to overcome systemic challenges." 

By employing data analysis and modeling, Elucidate has created the world’s first regulated risk scoring system for financial crime, the Elucidate FinCrime Index (EFI), to address this very problem and simplify the way the global financial system manages financial crime. 

Elucidate gives financial institutions the ability to identify and measure financial crime risk through sophisticated automation. Since being founded in 2018, Elucidate has rated over 20,000 organizations, setting a regulated benchmark to help the financial sector effectively counter surging financial crime. 

The scaling fintech has already received backing from a growing number of renowned financial institutions and individuals who recognize the need for setting a global crime risk benchmark. These partners include investors Raiffeisen Bank International and Lisbon-based Banco de Investimento Global.

Elucidate will use the investment to consolidate its position as the leading financial crime risk management platform, grow its revenue, operations, and data-science teams in Europe and the U,S and expand its recently launched financial crime risk pricing product. 

The current funding is the latest in a series of recent company milestones. In November 2021, Elucidate expanded into the US with the opening of an office in Miami. David Lewis, former Executive Secretary of the Financial Action Task Force, also joined Elucidate’s advisory board in February 2022. To date the company has raised $14m in funding and its team has grown to more than 40 people.

Baris Aksoy, General Partner of AV8 Ventures, lead investor, commented, “In a context of uncertainty and constant change, it has become nearly impossible for financial institutions to handle their increasingly complex processes in a manual way. Technology is playing a huge role in transforming this growing challenge. Elucidate's comprehensive AI-powered data analytics engine helps bring real-time, deep visibility into financial risk exposure, and give control to the people in charge. We are thrilled to be supporting the team's ambitious vision."

Valerie Brunner, Group Head of Institutional Clients at RBI, spoke on the investment and how it reflects RBI’s broader support of Elucidate’s work. “Elucidate enriches our internal analyses with additional external data-based assessments. This raises the discussion with our clients to a new qualitatively and quantitatively improved level and makes our compliance framework even more robust.”

For more information go to https://elucidate.co/ 

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About Elucidate: Elucidate is a Berlin-based financial crime risk quantification agency, which enables financial institutions to leverage their own data to assess and, critically, to predict the likelihood of a financial crime risk event, such as money laundering, terrorist financing, trafficking, tax evasion and others.

‍About AV8 Ventures: AV8 Ventures is an early stage focused venture fund that invests in intelligent enterprise, healthcare and fintech / insurtech start-ups.  The fund was launched in 2018 with backing from Allianz SE and is based in Palo Alto, CA.  AV8 is typically the first institutional investor in its partner companies and provides support to its founding entrepreneurs in establishing product-market fit, developing go to market capabilities, and architecting scalable business models. The AV8 team includes investing partners with operating experience in the relevant industries and a venture advisor network. Learn more about AV8 Ventures at www.av8.vc

About Elevator Ventures: Elevator Ventures is the Corporate Venture Capital Entity of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI). Its primary focus is on early stage and growth investments in fintechs and related enabling technologies in Central and Eastern Europe. In the role of a leading growth partner for fintechs in CEE, Elevator Ventures leverages RBI Group’s expertise, network and corporate strength in order to help promising scaleups expand across this dynamic region and beyond.

About APEX Ventures: APEX Ventures is a Europe based Venture Capital Firm investing into deep-tech start-ups with a focus on unique and defendable intellectual property and above-average market potential. APEX funds have completed numerous investments in Europe and in the U.S., among others in the fields of AI for medical applications, quantum and laser technologies, autonomous mobility, computer vision, as well as digital forensics. APEX Ventures closely supports the founding teams in their go-to-market approaches to help accelerate international growth. To identify talented teams and support their ideas at an early stage, APEX Ventures closely works with academic institutions, entrepreneurship programs and other international VC partners. www.apex.ventures

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