Diligent AI, a startup developing software agents for financial crime compliance operations, has raised £1.9 million in funding from Speedinvest and Shapers, with continued participation from Y Combinator. The funding will support product expansion, including launching additional agents, strengthening its existing product suite, and expanding the go-to-market team.
Financial institutions rely on KYC and anti-money-laundering teams to verify new customers, monitor transactions, and investigate potential fraud or money laundering. According to Diligent AI, the growth of sanctions, fraud, and digital payments has increased pressure on these teams, leaving analysts spending significant time on repetitive data gathering and compliance processes.
Diligent AI’s agents automate routine compliance workflows such as merchant and SMB onboarding risk reviews, adverse media analysis, and payment sanctions alert remediation. The system reads and analyses information across data sources to complete investigations and documentation, allowing analysts to focus on investigative judgement and decision-making.
Its software is already deployed across publicly listed payment companies, banks, and global fintechs in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Japan. Customers include Flywire, Allica Bank, Teya, and Digital Garage, which use the platform to resolve sanctions, politically exposed person, and adverse media alerts, conduct merchant risk reviews, and streamline onboarding.
With the new funding, Diligent AI plans to expand its product capabilities and hire across engineering and go-to-market roles as it continues to develop tools for financial crime compliance teams.
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.
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.
