Standard Chartered’s innovation, fintech and ventures unit, SC Ventures, has participated in a Series A funding round for regtech Silent Eight.
The AI-powered anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing startup raised an oversubscribed US$6.2 million in the round, with OTB Ventures and Wavemaker Partners also participating.
The capital will be directed at new hires, with plans to double its 50-strong global headcount by the end of Q1 2020.
Standard Chartered is Silent Eight’s largest client, having implemented the sanctions screening process across all business lines in over 40 markets.
Alex Manson, global head of SC Ventures, says: "Silent Eight uses artificial intelligence to improve financial institutions’ name screening process, hence enabling better decisions. By investing in Silent Eight, we will help them scale across our footprint, participate in an area of growth seeing huge investments by financial firms and support our overall commitment to the global fight against financial crime.”
The news comes off the back of an announcement that Standard Chartered is also partnering with Quantexa, a contextual decision intelligence software company. Standard Chartered will deploy the company’s big data analytics and AI platform to conduct complex financial investigations to bolster compliance and risk management processes.