After challenger banks comes the wave of anti-fraud startups

The sheer scale of global financial crime is not to be underestimated.

The U.K.’s National Crime Agency recently observed that it’s “in the hundreds of billions of pounds” annually, and that’s just in the U.K. In the U.S., domestic financial crime, excluding tax evasion, generates approximately $300 billion of proceeds each year for potential laundering. This is a conservative estimate.

So with the rise of startup banks, it only makes sense that the next phase of this fintech evolution will be detecting financial crime and fraud.

It’s, therefore, no surprise that Mimiro, which was previously known as ComplyAdvantage and was founded by the co-founder and former CEO of Marketinvoice, closed a $30 million (£22.8 million) funding round this week.

The raise was backed by Index Ventures and Balderton Capital. And guess where they previously laid their fintech cards? Yes, in the fintech/banking-style startup Revolut.

The trick with Mimiro is that it uses AI to analyze the risk of financial crime for banks, building a database of risk profiles for both companies and individuals.

Mimiro is not the only startup making hay in this hot space of fraud and identity. Onfido, which started off checking the credentials of Uber drivers, was recently selected by PensionBee to streamline its KYC processes and add more customers without manual intervention.

It’s even moved into the area of identity verification services for crypto platforms. Onfido has already secured $60 million worth of investment from the likes of Microsoft and Salesforce.

So it’s clear that in the age of greater liberalization of financial services, challenger banks and the rise of crypto platforms and services, tracking identity, fraud and financial crime is going to be an extremely hot space for startups, and the attendant venture capital, to tackle.