Lucinity Raises $2M, to transform the fight against money laundering

In November 2018, we set the goal of solving the current gap in the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) transaction monitoring market. Today, we are incredibly proud to tell you that we have closed a US $2M seed funding round, led by the Nordic Based VC Crowberry Capital. The funding enables us to expand our data science, engineering, and go-to-market efforts of our Lucinity ClearLens platform.

It was clear to us from the beginning that AML needed an Intelligent approach as the current methods are not working. Currently, US and EU banks are spending over US$40 billion dollars on AML efforts. Yet, laundered money is still flowing through the financial system and is estimated to be worth over 2,4 trillion dollars a year, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which also estimates that only 1% of the proceeds from financial crime are intercepted. Meanwhile, the current methods and systems deployed to detect money laundering are extremely inefficient, producing over 99% false alerts.

Even though some recent industry scandals would contradict, we believe it is not through lack of effort by the AML teams that the results are not better. We estimate that financial firms spend approximately 200,000 person-hours per day on reviewing AML surveillance alerts while only capturing 1% of the issues. We know that this staggering cost and lack of results is largely a consequence of the current rule-based technology and human surveillance efforts not working together effectively. Therefore, we adopted a new approach called Augmented Intelligence, which combines the power of Artificial Intelligence and human intelligence through constant feedback loops (learn more). Using this approach, our platform, Lucinity ClearLens empowers clients to improve the detection of suspicious behavior patterns and significantly increase review efficiency.

Backed Up by Experience

Early in our fundraising journey, we met the fantastic and bold Nordic-based VC Crowberry Capital that offered to lead the round with other investors including the US-based early stage Preceptor Capital as well as private industry veterans from New York, London, Tel Aviv, Dubai, and Reykjavík. Helga Valfells, the Managing Partner at Crowberry Capital, noted in our press release:

"We are convinced that the AML transaction surveillance market requires a new approach, as is evidenced by the recent money laundering scandals. In Lucinity, we saw a team that has tremendous relevant execution experience and an extremely innovative approach that we believe will be a game-changer for firms fighting money laundering." (Helga Valfells, Managing Partner at Crowberry Capital)

Our international investor group is a testament to our approach, experience and market need. We are grateful for this backing and we look forward to working with Crowberry Capital, Preceptor Capital, and the other investors to transform the fight against money laundering.

The pivotal role of the Icelandic FinTech Cluster

Joining the FinTech cluster was key to Lucinity being able to reach clients quickly, investors, and partners throughout the Nordics. Special thanks to Gunnlaugur Jonsson, the CEO of the Icelandic FinTech Cluster for his relentless backup and support since the founding of Lucinity.

Journey Ahead

This investment brings to Lucinity, enhanced resources to support fulfilling what it takes to meet the challenges in our path in building the next generation AML monitoring solution through expanded data science, state-of-the-art engineering, and subject matter expertise. We look forward to you joining us on this exciting journey. Stay tuned!