Quantexa has closed a USD3.3 million Series A investment, led by Albion Ventures and HSBC with the new capital set to be used to further accelerate product development and international expansion.
Founded in 2016 by a team of world-class software, data and advanced analytics experts, Quantexa currently uses big data analytics to tackle complex financial crime and data challenges within the financial services, corporate and public sectors.
In its first year, the company has been awarded several significant enterprise mandates in its target sectors.
The investment will enable Quantexa to further accelerate the development of its Entity Resolution and Network Analytics software, which has the ability to resolve entities and build networks in real time and batch, and further derive meaningful intelligence through AI and Machine Learning. The investment will also be used to support Quantexa's international expansion, with new offices in Brussels, Sydney and New York opening throughout 2017.
Quantexa’s growth comes at a time when businesses are under increased pressure to optimise their use of data to combat financial crime challenges and improve the customer experience from both advanced analytics and AI. Industry analysts Forrester predicts that investments in AI will grow 300 per cent in 2017 and Gartner forecasts that 50 per cent of all analytical interactions will be delivered via AI in the next three to five years. The current market for advanced analytical service providers is estimated to be worth approximately USD16 billion. In addition, WealthInsight estimates that spending on AML compliance alone will total USD8 billion in 2017, growing at 9 per cent pa.
In 2016, Quantexa also won the prestigious SWIFT Innotribe Industry Challenge on Compliance looking at complementing the SWIFT KYC Registry. It enabled the company to further develop its products in collaboration with the Innotribe team and SWIFT’s financial crime compliance management team.
Vishal Marria, CEO, says: “Driving intelligence from internal and external data is a constant challenge organisations face. At Quantexa we feel we have built the next generation of Entity Resolution and Network Analytics software to support our clients in dynamically building a truly 360-degree view of their clients and their network relationships. Our aim is to become the global leader in Entity Resolution and Network Analytics and are delighted to have successfully completed this round of investment with HSBC and Albion Ventures. We look forward to working closely with our new investors in making this aim a reality by supporting our clients and partners.”
Imam Hoque, COO and global head of product, says: “Along with our investors/new partners, we are looking forward to accelerating our international footprint and scope of products to provide customers essential entity resolution and network analytics capability. This is crucial in driving real value from the artificial intelligence being deployed in their rapidly expanding data lake environments. We see significant growth potential as organisations evolve to make intelligent data driven decisions central to all their operations.”
Ray O’Brien, HSBC’s global risk COO and head of global risk analytics, says: “HSBC is constantly striving to improve the way we detect and prevent financial crime, and we are keen to explore technologies which help us build on existing capabilities. Quantexa has developed powerful applications of network analytics to this field, and we look forward to being more closely associated with their future development.”
Ed Lascelles, partner at Albion Ventures, says: “Albion’s tech investments are focused on digital B2B companies, with data analytics a core focus for us. What sets Quantexa apart is the team’s unrivalled domain expertise coupled with their cutting edge technical capability. They have a huge opportunity to build an industry-leading business and we look forward to supporting them on their journey.”
