$200M fundraise turns Advance.AI into biometric fraud prevention unicorn

Advance.AI is working to finalize a $200 million funding round that would bestow unicorn status on the Singaporean biometric fraud prevention provider as a startup with a billion-dollar valuation, according to a Reuters report.

The funding round is yet to close, but the report names Warburg Pincus as the lead investor.

The company completed an $80 million Series C funding round two years ago, and Reuters’ unnamed source said the current round will more than double its valuation.

Advance.AI currently has more than 1,000 clients in banking, ecommerce, fintech and retail, and the company is expanding from its core customer base in Southeast Asia and India to new markets including Mexico. Its bid as part of a consortium for a wholesale digital banking license in Singapore was rejected last year.

Partners with Dow Jones on AML

Advance.AI has also selected Dow Jones as a partner to integrate the latter’s anti-money laundering (AML) and compliance data with the former’s biometric identity verification and risk scoring.

The combined technology will be offered to customers in South and Southeast Asia.

“While COVID-19 has accelerated the pace of digitalization in financial services and digital commerce, it also comes with the increased threat from online financial crime, which is more sophisticated and organised than ever,” states Advance.AI CEO Dong Shou. “Combining Dow Jones’ AML and compliance data with our eKYC and risk scoring solutions improves the robustness of our one-stop digital identity verification (DIV) platform, which unifies our enterprise fraud and risk management solutions, and protects our enterprise partners from operational and reputational risks.”

The company recently appointed a new chief commercial officer, and was named to the Fintech Power 50 earlier this year.

Article Topics

Advance.AI  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  financial services  |  fraud prevention  |  funding  |  identity verification  |  investment  |  Singapore  |  startup