We are excited to announce that we have raised a $2.5 million financing round led by Speedinvest and Shapers, with continued participation from Y Combinator.
1. Why we started
Frontline KYC and AML teams are the gatekeepers of the global financial system. They verify every new customer’s legitimacy, monitor transactions and behaviors, and hunt for signs of fraud or money laundering.
Today, they are fighting an asymmetric war. The growth of global sanctions as a political tool, the explosion of fraud and scams, and the sheer velocity of digital payments have placed these teams under unprecedented pressure.
The work has become mundane and overwhelming. Highly skilled professionals who signed up to fight criminals are stuck in loops of repetitive data gathering and box-checking. They are forced to prioritize speed over depth, doing more due diligence instead of the best due diligence.
2. Where we are today
We started Diligent AI to supercharge financial crime compliance operations and put analysts back into a truly investigative role instead of a data-processing role.
Our AI agents complete routine KYC and AML workflows end to end, from merchant and SMB onboarding risk reviews to adverse media analysis and payment sanctions alert remediation. They read, reason, and investigate, handling the heavy lifting so analysts can focus on judgment and strategy.
We have already deployed our agents across publicly listed payment companies, banks, and global fintechs in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Japan, including players like Flywire (NASDAQ: FLYW), Allica Bank, Teya, and Digital Garage (TYO: 4819), and many more. These institutions use Diligent to resolve sanctions, PEP, and adverse media alerts, conduct in-depth merchant risk reviews, and streamline customer onboarding.
"Diligent AI significantly reduced our onboarding workflows and eliminated repetitive tasks for our team, supporting the quality of our processes by making them consistent and auditable."
— Maureen Gorman, Head of Global Operations, Alma
"Diligent AI agents helped us slash our risk review times significantly, but more importantly, helped us build a stronger and more systematic approach to risk detection."
— Karan Khanna, Fraud Strategy Manager, Tamara
3. Who we are bringing aboard
With this $2.5 million round, we are excited to welcome Tier 1 fintech venture capital investors Speedinvest and Shapers, together with incredible angels such as the founders and CEOs of Allica Bank, N26, CyberSource (Visa), IDnow, Billie, and many more.
Speedinvest is a leading European venture capital firm with more than €1 billion in assets under management. Their dedicated, sector-focused teams fund Europe’s most innovative technology startups, supporting founders with growth, HR, and market expansion. Bitpanda, GoStudent, Wayflyer, and Tide are among their portfolio companies.
We are fortunate to have veterans of the financial services industry on board who deeply understand what it takes to build in regulated, high-stakes environments, and who have built KYC and AML solutions now used by some of the largest financial institutions in the world.
4. Where we are going next
With this funding, we will invest in significant product expansion, launching new AI agents for additional task archetypes, strengthening our existing suite of products, and expanding our go-to-market team to support our customers globally.
We are hiring across the board, from backend and machine learning engineers to go-to-market associates.
As financial crime evolves, we are committed to ensuring that the defenders of the financial system have the best possible tools to fight back.
Now, back to work!
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