Standard Chartered has invested in a $6.2 million funding round for artificial intelligence-powered anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing startup Silent Eight.

The fresh capital from this round will be used to hire new employees to support a pipeline of customers, comprising large banks and insurance companies. The company is hiring for its offices in Singapore, Warsaw, London and New York, with plans to double the headcount by the end of the first quarter next year.

Existing investor Wavemaker Partners led this new round, with other participating investors including SC Ventures - Standard Chartered ’s innovation, FinTech investment and ventures arm - and OTB Ventures.

Alex Manson, global head of SC Ventures, said: "The complexity of our financial system creates a demand for technologies that make financial crime compliance both more effective and more efficient.

“By investing in Silent Eight, we will help them scale across our footprint, participate in an area of growth seeing huge investments by financial firms and support our overall commitment to the global fight against financial crime.”

The bank is Silent Eight's most significant live deployment. After a successful proof of concept, it was implemented in 2018, and now it is optimising Standard Chartered’s name screening process across all business lines, in over 40 markets, including the US, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong.

With this new fundraise, Paul Santos, managing partner of Wavemaker Partners Southeast Asia, has joined Silent Eight's board.

"Year after year, banks continue to face increased scrutiny and regulations,” he commented. “An AI-powered engine like Silent Eight is the most effective solution to weed out money laundering and terrorist financing and reduce manpower and compliance risks.”

This investment follows from another announcement made yesterday that Standard Chartered has joined forces with Quantexa, the contextual decision intelligence software company, to use big data analytics and AI to combat financial crime globally.

Developed in partnership, the new contextual intelligence platform will enable the bank to conduct complex financial thematic investigations more efficiently and effectively.

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