Portfolio

Ascension Invests in ComplyStream: our 5th SEIS Fund Investment

Toyosi Ogedengbe

29 Jan 2025

The operational stack for combating financial crime is currently highly fragmented, contributing 30-50% of total operational costs for financial institutions. 

Inefficiencies in these processes not only drive up costs, but also result in significant penalties costing financial institutions hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for record-keeping failures.

Enter ComplyStream
ComplyStream provides a unified operations workspace powered by intelligent workflows, designed to accelerate alert resolution and ensure uninterrupted payment flows. Its frictionless and flexible integration with FIs is built on the following key pillars:

  • Team expertise – founded by a team with experience at JPMorgan, Tide, BVNK, and Thredd, the platform is designed by experts who deeply understand the challenges of B2B payments, financial crime, and machine learning
  • Consolidation – it brings together fragmented data and workflows into a single, cohesive platform, delivering a seamless, efficient experience
  • Automation – by automating repetitive, manual tasks, it enables teams to focus on high-value, critical work
  • Uninterrupted operations – ComplyStream accelerates alert resolution, keeping payments flowing without disruption

What set ComplyStream apart for the Ascension investment team?

  1. A nascent market opportunity – post event financial crime operations is a relatively untapped area. While most players globally are focused on pre-event interventions, ComplyStream has a rare chance to establish early dominance in this emerging space
  2. Lower barriers to adoption – instead of replacing existing tools, ComplyStream integrates seamlessly into current systems, reducing the friction for adoption within FIs
  3. Proprietary edge – ComplyStream’s contextual models are trained securely and privately on first-party customer data, creating a significant competitive moat against potential competitors

ComplyStream’s vision of transforming financial crime operations is aligned with Ascension’s commitment to supporting innovative, impactful solutions in the fintech space. We are excited to partner with them on this journey to reshape the way FIs handle financial crime operations.