A number of prominent financial institutions have backed Norm Ai, an Artificial Intelligence company focused on the RegTech sector.
In a move indicative of the growing investor appetite for AI technology and its potential, Blackstone, Bain Capital Ventures, Jefferson River Capital, TIAA Ventures, New York Life Ventures, CitiGroup and Coatue all participated in the funding round in Norm Ai.
The raise generated £27m in capital for the company, which has so far secured funding of £38m from financial investors. The investment is the latest testament to observations made by a range of financial stakeholders in recent years, that AI has fast become a provincial subject of investment interest.
“I’ve been conducting research at the intersection of AI and law for more than a decade,” said John Nay, Founder and CEO of Norm Ai.
“We are now at an inflection point in AI capabilities that, when properly harnessed, unlock massive improvements in regulatory compliance workflows across the economy. To have the Series A backing of such notable institutions is a testament to Norm Ai’s leadership in Regulatory AI.”
Norm Ai’s primary activity is developing AI which converts regulations into code, assisting businesses by automating compliance analyses to make them boost efficiency, comprehensiveness and accuracy.
The company has built up a client-base of Fortune 100 companies which utilise its AI-derived models. These companies use its ‘Regulatory Agents’, as Norm Ai refers to its models, to support critical regulatory assessments.
Following its latest funding round, Norm Ai states that it aims to leverage the capital to further expand its platform and client base, partly by hiring new staff. The firm is seeking new hires in software engineering, AI, engineering, legal engineering and sales, among other areas.
John Stecher, CTO of Blackstone, said: “The Blackstone Innovations Investments team has been impressed by Norm’s speed of execution and their differentiated approach to building a scalable platform for systematic regulatory compliance.
“We are excited about the platform’s potential to drive significant efficiency for regulatory compliance operations.”
The investment in Norm Ai by a range of high profile groups showcases the fact that AI, as noted above, has become a significant investment magnet lately. Various financial institutions have been looking to benefit from AI, both by integrating the tech into their operations but also by investing in up-and-coming companies.
Matt Harris, a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, added: “I have been investing and helping build companies in the banking, lending, payments, and fintech world for decades and the largest headwind for these companies now is the accretion of regulatory sludge – filling out forms, cross-checking information, ticking and tying, etc. – and how this increasingly slows down businesses and adds risk.
“This is the problem that Norm Ai tackles head-on and why we at Bain Capital Ventures are so excited about backing them.”
