Communications compliance startup Umony Ltd. said today it has raised $15 million in an early-stage round of funding as it seeks to become the industry standard for financial institutions and telecommunications operators.

The Series A round was led by Notion Capital and saw participation from existing investors SeedCamp and Crane Venture Partners, plus new angel investors that include Hugging Face Inc. Chief Science Officer Dr. Thomas Wolf.

The startup also announced it has hired a number of influential advisors boasting “world-class” expertise in areas such as artificial intelligence, regulation and enterprise technology.

Umony has built a secure communications compliance platform that uses AI to ensure highly regulated organizations adhere to the strictest industry regulations. Its platform is focused on automating compliance processes to help companies reduce risks associated with regulatory violations.

Those risks are significant. Umony says businesses worldwide were slapped with over $2 billion in fines for regulatory breaches relating to their communications in the last two years, so they need a way to stay ahead. With its platform, they can capture, archive and intelligently analyze their communications across mobile, chat, email, voice and video calls to detect any possible violations or misconduct and ensure compliance with record-keeping rules.

Umony offers three separate tools, including a Capture suite that’s designed to capture communications from third-party platforms such as WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Slack, Gmail and others. The Archive suite is customized for financial services firms and allows banks and other financial institutions to store all of their voice, messaging and other communications data in a way that’s regulatory compliant. Finally, its Monitor tools leverage generative AI surveillance capabilities to cover communications in 47 languages in real time to immediately identify any regulatory breaches.

The startup says this fusion of cutting-edge AI and deep regulatory expertise sets it apart from competing platforms, and explains why it is already being used by more than 100 banks, hedge funds and private equity firms globally, as well as dozens of telecommunications providers.

Umony was keen to stress the importance of its new advisory board, which includes AI experts such as Wolf, and Tracey McDermott, the former chief executive of the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority and the current chief compliance officer at Standard Chartered Plc. Other new advisers include the former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission prosecutor Hemma Lomax and the former Chief Compliance Officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Stephen Sanders.

McDermott said she believes AI has a big role to play in the future of compliance. She added that she and the others will help to guide Umony and formulate its strategy during its next phase of growth. “Umony’s AI-first approach helps firms detect risk in real time, not after the fact,” she said.

Looking forward, Umony wants to expand its platform across major financial hubs globally. To do that, it will scale its AI research and engineering teams and enhance its regulatory product features.

Umony founder and CEO Dean Elwood said the company is all about making compliance smarter, faster and future-proof.

Images: Umony