Thirdfort, the anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) technology provider for the legal sector, has secured £15M in a series A funding round.
Since January 2020, Thirdfort grew from a team of 10 with 30 business clients and one industry partner to an enterprise with 100 “Thirdforters”, 700 business clients, and 15 industry partners who have integrated Thirdfort. Now, Thirdfort has taken it’s first institutional investment from Breega and Element Ventures.
With recent events bringing into sharp focus the importance of spotting and preventing money laundering and other fraud, Olly Thornton-Berry, Managing Director & Co-Founder, sympathises with professionals who are trying to protect their businesses and clients while facing a tidal wave of increasing regulation and fraud risk.
According to Thornton-Berry, client ID verification, source of funds confirmation (guilty until proven innocent) and client funds transfer requests still predominantly rely on disjointed and paper-based processes. Fraudsters and money launderers are exploiting this by using fake IDs, falsified financial records and companies with obscure ownership structures.
Thirdfort built a platform for businesses to use on both individuals and corporate clients that encompasses KYC (know your client) and AML (anti-money laundering), Source of Funds, and secure payments – all powered by best-in-class tech, Open Banking, and Thirdfort’s own proprietary risk engine.
Clients of businesses using Thirdfort have the option to download their mobile app to connect bank feeds, input verification data and soon, securely send funds to their professional advisers. These options aim to reduce onboarding time to minutes and helps businesses turn compliance into a competitive advantage. According to Thornton-Berry, Thirdfort’s mobile app has been downloaded by over 500,000 individuals in the UK over the past two and a half years.
Thirdfort wants to continue to raise the bar on delivering what they call a “beautifully secure experience” for clients of their business users.