AI startup Fourthline locks down $54M to bring better ID checks and compliance tools to the finance sector

News Summary

  • “We’ve invested a lot to do this.” That is one key reason why it took years for the company to launch a single product.The company has a very streamlined view of how it goes to market.
  • Similarly, this is why it’s only concentrating on the financial sector and not applying its tech or looking at business development with the many other sectors that might also buy ID services.
  • Fourthline has been around since 2013 — building its tech for five years before commercially launching in 2018 — and it has been mostly growing on its own steam, with only €70 million raised to date, including this latest €50 million injection.
  • At least not right now.“There are a lot of companies in this space that do a lot with AI, but in all honesty, it takes a lot of time, investment, knowledge and training before you can get AI models to the level you want,” he said.
  • Today, it said it has raised €50 million ($54 million) in funding to expand that technology.The all-equity round is being led by Finch Capital, with other undisclosed investors (one of whom is a strategic institutional partner, I’ve been told).
  • The valuation of the company is not being disclosed.In the five years since its launch, growth has been impressive: Fourthline’s customers include N26, Qonto, Trade Republic, FlatexDEGIRO, Scalable Capital, NN and Western Union, as well as marketplaces like Wish.
As digital financial services become more advanced, so too do the efforts of malicious hackers and fraudsters to crack into those valuable systems and so too do the efforts of regulators to build b [+4995 chars]