Risk intelligence platform Sigma Ratings has closed a new round led by Fitch Group, a global leader in financial information services, via its equity investment arm Fitch Ventures.
Other investors backing the raise included FinTech Collective, Contour Ventures, and Barclays.
New York City-based Sigma plans to use the cash injection to fuel the growth of its engineering and delivery teams to accelerate its growing risk and compliance technology offering.
“We welcome Fitch, an original pioneer of the modern ratings system, as one of our investors and look forward to what we will accomplish together,” said Stuart Jones, Jr., founder and CEO of Sigma. “As an existing partner and consumer of Sigma services, it is a natural next step for Fitch to invest now and help power the development of our technology which has broad application for anyone assessing risk globally.”
The news of the raise comes as less than 1% of money laundering activities goes undetected at the same time as the risk associated with failing to live up to regulatory demands and the reputational risks associated with illicit finance more broadly keep on growing.
This was one of the reasons why Shea Wallon, managing director at. Fitch Ventures, said the investor had decided to back the venture. “An increased focus from market participants on the risks related to financial crime and governance underpins Fitch’s decision to invest in Sigma, as well as to pursue joint work and research between Fitch Ratings and Sigma,” Wallon said.
“Non-financial risks such as governance and financial crime are becoming more relevant to Fitch’s bank credit ratings. Sigma impressed us with their combination of technology and domain expertise in this area. We believe their technology solution will directly benefit Fitch, as well as the investors who use its ratings and research.”
Sigma’s approach is made possible through the combination of global datasets, cutting edge matching and retrieval algorithms, and expertise developed through senior-level work to combat financial crime at the United States Treasury Department. Utilizing Sigma’s cloud-based tools, bulge bracket financial institutions, asset managers, insurance companies and money service providers are all seeing a significant decrease in their time-to-insight.
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