Singapore regulatory tech firm raises $7.5m series A round

Tookitaki, a Singapore-headquartered regulatory technology startup that aims to enable financial institutions to develop sustainable compliance programs through artificial intelligence, has raised US$7.5 million in a series A round.

The round was led by London-based Illuminate Financial, an early-stage enterprise financial technology investor along with existing backers Jungle Ventures, a Singapore-based VC firm focusing on Southeast Asia, Enterprise Singapore, Supply Chain Angels, VWX Capital, and senior banking executives.

Abhishek Chatterjee of Tookitaki / Photo credit: MCI

Led by Founder and CEO Abhishek Chatterjee, Tookitaki was incorporated in November 2014 and has offices in Singapore, India, and the US.

“Sustainability in regulatory compliance is a key question today, as financial institutions try hard to deal with complex transactions, multiple data sources, and stringent regulatory demands,” says Chatterjee.

“Financial institutions spend a lot of time, resources, and money on antiquated systems with rules-based workflows and heavy dependency on manual investigations,” he adds. It’s not an ideal situation because of the huge financial and reputational risk of regulatory lapses.

Mark Rodrigues, partner at Illuminate, will join the board of directors at Tookitaki.

The startup has deployed its Anti-Money Laundering Suite (AMLS) software with United Overseas Bank, a major bank in Asia. AMLS was able to reduce 40 to 50 percent of false alerts in transaction monitoring and names screening, the company claims. It has also deployed its Reconciliation Suite in global banks like Societe Generale.

Tookitaki has been accredited by the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s Accreditation@SG Digital program, which aims to help startups secure enterprise customers.