Regtech is emerging as a powerful theme in 2019 driven by the rapid adoption of technologies across the financial industry. Funding in the sector was another key highlight. Singapore-based Tookitaki, a regulatory technology company that aims to enable financial institutions to develop sustainable compliance programs, has raised US$7.5 million in Series A round.

The round was co-led by London-based Illuminate Financial, an early-stage enterprise financial technology investor along with Jungle Ventures, a Singapore-based VC firm focused on technology investments in South East Asia. Other investors who participated in the round are Enterprise Singapore, Supply Chain Angels and VWX Capital (an investment group of senior banking executives).

Help Financial Institutions

The company is combining advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), distributed systems and deep business expertise to create the building blocks of sustainable compliance management. It describes its enterprise software solutions as “scalable, auditable and actionable”.

Led by Founder and CEO Abhishek Chatterjee, Tookitaki has witnessed substantial growth since its incorporation in November 2014. Today, the company has offices in Singapore, India and the US. It announced the opening of its US office in North Carolina in September 2018.

“Sustainability in regulatory compliance is a key question today, as financial institutions try hard to deal with complex transactions, multiple data sources and stringent regulatory demands. FIs keep on spending a lot of time, resources and money on antiquated systems with rules-based workflows and heavy dependency on manual investigation but they have become vexatious for compliance personnel. Not to mention, the huge financial and reputational risk in case of regulatory lapses,” says Chatterjee.

He created Tookitaki to help FIs create a sustainable framework by driving effectiveness and efficiency in current compliance programs.

“From our inception, we have remained focused on research and development (R&D) to provide clients with cutting-edge software solutions that can establish tangible and quick value for investment,” he adds.

Investor Outlook

A large portion of the funding will be utilized in strengthening R&D capabilities.

Mark Rodrigues, Partner at Illuminate, who will join the Board of Directors at Tookitaki, says, “Tookitaki’s combination of advanced technologies and deep industry knowledge are a solid foundation that has helped the company gain meaningful industry engagement. Financial institutions have reached the breaking point in their compliance processes which has resulted in a series of very significant fines. Illuminate believes that Tookitaki is well positioned to help these institutions reach a point of sustainable compliance. We’re excited to join the journey and to help build this company into a global leader in their space.”

Of late, the company successfully deployed its Anti-Money Laundering Suite (AMLS) software, with United Overseas Bank, a leading bank in Asia. AMLS was able to reduce 40 per cent and 50 per cent of false alerts in transaction monitoring and names screening, respectively, across all segments. The company has also successfully tested and deployed its Reconciliation Suite (RS) in global banks like Societe Generale.