Castellum.AI Raises $8.5M Series A To Accelerate AI Agent and AML/KYC Platform Adoption

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Castellum.AI, the only financial crime compliance platform with in-house risk data, AML/KYC screening and AI agents, announced the close of an oversubscribed $8.5m Series A round.

“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,” said CEO and Co-Founder Peter Piatetsky.

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The round was led by Curql, a fund backed by over 130 credit unions including Navy Federal, with participation from BTech Consortium, a fund backed by over a dozen banks including Customers Bank, and Framework Venture Partners, a fund backed by Tier 1 Canadian financial institutions including RBC. Existing investors from Spider Capital, Remarkable Ventures and Cameron Ventures also participated in the round.

“Financial institutions face the dual threat of criminals using AI and legacy systems generating unnecessary compliance alerts on a daily basis,” said Nick Evans, President and CEO of Curql. “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.”

“I could not have asked for a better investor fit,” said Peter Piatetsky, Co-Founder and CEO of Castellum.AI. “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.”

Castellum.AI reduces AML/KYC false positives by 94% and the time spent on compliance reviews by 83% out of the box – before any tuning. This is why Castellum.AI is becoming the compliance platform of choice for major financial institutions, credit unions, sponsor banks, fintechs and leading crypto exchanges who seek to eliminate compliance bottlenecks that slow operations.

“The true value of AI in compliance is entirely dependent on the quality of the underlying data and screening alerts – garbage in, garbage out,” said Mike Sekits, the Co-Founder and Managing Director of BTech Consortium. “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.”

Validated and Trained: Castellum.AI Agent Passes FinCrime Exam On The First Try

Castellum.AI’s AI agents have passed a CAMS practice exam on the first try. Passing the CAMS exam is often a requirement for certain fincrime roles. The AI agent training was led by ex-regulators and included AML/KYC best practices and regulatory guidance from the OCC, NCUA, NY DFS, California DFPI and other financial services regulators. We have reached out to ACAMS to have our AI agent take an exam in a proctored setting and receive an official CAMS certification, but have not heard back at the time of publishing of this press release.

Combined with detailed audit records covering each decision, institutions have the confidence to deploy an AI agent that aligns with regulatory expectations to the front lines of financial crime prevention.

Reducing Switching Costs, Speeding Up Implementations

The company also works with clients on modular implementations that incorporate each institution's risk requirements and procedures, reducing switching costs.

“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,” said Ajay Gopal, a partner at Framework Venture Partners.

End-to-End Compliance: Data, Screening and AI Agents

Castellum.AI has an integrated approach to compliance, combining risk data (sanctions, PEPs, adverse media and more), AML/KYC screening and AI agents in a single, audit-ready system built entirely in-house.

“Compliance teams are drowning in false positives while financial crime slips through the cracks,” said Piatetsky. “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.”

Providing Value to FinCrime Teams

• A leading sponsor bank reduced their AML/KYC review costs by 88%
• A community bank reduced transaction screening false positive rates by 94%
• A Fortune 50 corporation reduced Level 1 KYC alerts by 83%
• A major crypto brokerage reduced their data refresh time from 24 hours to every 5 minutes

Castellum.AI provides clients direct oversight of their compliance process. The company’s patented data collection and machine learning enrichment process collects sanctions, PEPs, adverse media and other risk data from original sources. This data feeds Castellum.AI’s screening and monitoring system to notify clients of their risk exposure in real time.

“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,” said Piatetsky.

About Castellum.AI

Castellum.AI is the only financial crimes compliance platform with in-house risk data, AML/KYC screening and AI agents. Trusted by community banks, sponsor banks, leading crypto exchanges and financial services firms, Castellum.AI enables compliance teams to scale their operations while maintaining precision, accountability and oversight. For more information, visit Castellum.AI.