Startup Thirdfort has built tools first to address the needs of companies in the legal and property markets. The product today comes in two parts. First, there is the “risk engine” built for its business clients, which can be used both for KYC (know your customer) checks as well as to help companies comply with anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. There are around 700 businesses already using the platform, including law firms DAC Beachcroft, Penningtons Manches Cooper and Mishcon de Reya; and property businesses Knight Frank, Strutt & Parker and Winkworth.
Second, there is an app built for customers of those businesses. This has been built on open
banking infrastructure to connect up those businesses with the customer’s bank, by way of the banks’ own banking apps, for payments and related transactions to be made in a secure way. This has now been downloaded some 500,000 times.
Thirdfort, which has built a platform to help professional services firms run more thorough due
diligence, and to flag when something is suspicious, is announcing a funding round of £15 million (about $20 million), money that it will be using to continue expanding its services, specifically to build payment infrastructure directly into its platform.
The raise, a Series A, was led by Breega, with B2B fintech-focused Element Ventures also investing, along with the founders of ComplyAdvantage, Tessian, Fenergo, R3, Funding Circle and Fidel.
While Thirdfort today focuses primarily on fraud detection - it’s managed to halt around one dozen
dodgy transactions for its customers - it’s also built for AML diligence and compliance regulations and will likely come into its own when these are run more widely, especially around any large transactions involving international money.
