Private equity house Warburg Pincus has acquired anti-money laundering outfit Searchspace and merged the operations with Semagix - a provider of know your customer and due diligence products - to form a new company called Fortent.
Fortent will combine SearchSpace and Semagix products to deliver a suite of risk and compliance systems to financial institutions worldwide. The new company says it will satisfy industry demand for a total risk-compliance solution in an otherwise fragmented market.
Searchspace and Semagix will both retain their names as product brands under Fortent.
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, although Warburg Pincus is understood to have provided a significant equity commitment to the company.
As part of the deal, Sandy Jaffee joins Fortent as CEO from Warburg Pincus where, as entrepreneur-in-residence, she was part of the team that acquired the Searchspace and Semagix services.
Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, Jaffee served as president and CEO of Citibank's Global Securities Services.
Commenting on the merger, Jaffee says: "The combination of Searchspace and Semagix is an unbeatable one-two punch in the risk and compliance area."
Mimi Strouse, a Warburg Pincus managing director will be Fortent's chairman of the board. She says the firm settled on Searchspace as the launch pad for the new enterprise after researching over 180 vendors in the compliance-risk industry.
Other Fortent board members include Tony Terracciano, Rich Green, EVP of software for Sun Microsystems, James Neary, a Warburg Pincus managing director and Peter Wallison, former White House Counsel and general counsel to the US treasury department.