Compliance Firm Laika Notches $35M to Bolster Automation

Compliance-as-a-service platform Laika has raised $35 million in a Series B funding round led by J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners, according to a Tuesday (Nov. 2) press release. The round also saw participation from PayPal Ventures, as well as current investors Bain Capital Ventures, Canapi, Dashfund, Nyca and ThirdPrime.

Laika will allocate funds for devising additional automation, integrating audit experiences into the platform, expanding its staff from 100 to 120 employees within the next year, and broadening the company’s growth in the market, according to the announcement.

The New York-based company uses its platform to help businesses implement compliance guidelines to meet various regulatory requirements. The platform combines automated information security workflows, audits, monitoring and vendor due diligence.

“Meeting compliance requirements for regulators or enterprise customers can be a huge obstacle for startups with innovative products but small teams,” said Eva Pittas, founder and COO of Laika. “By [making it] into a frictionless, subscription-based digital experience, Laika transforms compliance from a sales obstacle into a growth lever for front-line sales and business development teams.”

Laika has seen 4.5 times annual recurring revenue growth year over year, including 3.9 times YOY customer growth, according to the announcement.

Know your customer (KYC) identity verification tools are another quickly evolving commodity, particularly for banks and financial institutions (FIs). ID verification company SentiLink last month announced the launch of a “first-of-its-kind” KYC offering, as PYMNTS reported. Dubbed KYC Insights, the product will complement its synthetic fraud and ID theft scores.

The SentiLink offering allows FIs to determine the identity of a customer opening an account. In addition, the company said it can “dramatically lower the cost of compliance.” KYC Insights is said to stop more identity fraud and authorize more users, provide more insights about risks posed by applications for additional investigation, and fulfill customer identification program guidelines.

Read also: SentiLink Unveils ‘First-of-Its-Kind’ KYC Product

Identity verification might also soon be a requirement for WhatsApp users, per a PYMNTS report. WhatsApp Pay in India verifies the phone number linked to the customer’s account, while Brazilian users verify their credit or debit cards to make payments on the Facebook messaging app. New additions on a beta release hint that ID verification could be on the way.

See also: WhatsApp Users Might Have to Verify ID for Payments