Castellum.AI, a financial crime compliance platform featuring in-house risk data, AML/KYC screening, and AI agents, announced it has closed an oversubscribed $8.5 million Series A funding round. This funding round was led by Curql, supported by over 130 credit unions, including Navy Federal, with additional participation from the BTech Consortium and Framework Venture Partners, as well as existing investors such as Spider Capital, Remarkable Ventures, and Cameron Ventures.
The platform reduces AML/KYC false positives by 94% and cuts compliance review time by 83%, making it the preferred choice for financial institutions, credit unions, fintechs, and crypto exchanges looking to optimize their compliance processes. And Castellum.AI’s AI agents have also passed the CAMS practice exam on their first attempt, with training provided by ex-regulators.
With comprehensive audit records and a modular implementation approach, Castellum.AI enables institutions to effectively deploy AI agents that align with regulatory standards while providing real-time risk exposure notifications through a single, integrated system.
KEY QUOTES:
“Financial institutions face the dual threat of criminals using AI and legacy systems generating unnecessary compliance alerts on a daily basis. We’re excited to invest in Castellum.AI because they’re deploying AI agents that are fast, precise and explainable to regulators. Banks and credit unions need access to next-generation technology to keep up and Castellum.AI is exactly what the doctor ordered.”
Nick Evans, President and CEO of Curql
“I could not have asked for a better investor fit. We help financial services identify and prevent financial crime. That our Series A funding comes from credit unions and banks validates our platform and market alignment.”
“Compliance teams are drowning in false positives while financial crime slips through the cracks. We’ve eliminated the tradeoff of choosing accuracy and risk mitigation. You no longer have to delay transactions or onboarding to identify true positives. Our explainable AI powers Level 1 and Level 2 alert adjudications and supports Level 3 investigations, all with detailed audit trails.”
“By embedding AI into our platform we’ve enabled AI summaries for global adverse media that dramatically reduce review times, AI-powered enrichments that categorize unstructured data in real-time, AI agents that review alerts – and more.”
Peter Piatetsky, Co-Founder and CEO of Castellum.AI
“The true value of AI in compliance is entirely dependent on the quality of the underlying data and screening alerts – garbage in, garbage out. It cannot be realized with just an LLM wrapper. Castellum.AI is the only company that combines all three in-house: data, screening and AI agents.”
Mike Sekits, the Co-Founder and Managing Director of BTech Consortium
“One of the biggest pain points for our financial institution backers is the switching cost of changing providers. Castellum.AI’s ability to layer AI agents on top of existing tools – working with, not against a client’s tech stack, gave us the confidence in their ability to rapidly support clients.”
Ajay Gopal, a partner at Framework Venture Partners
