Sells banks, fintechs, payment firms and crypto platforms a cloud AML platform built on its own sanctions, PEP and adverse-media database, adding screening, transaction monitoring, payment screening and, since 2025, AI agents that clear routine alerts; small firms can buy self-service plans at published prices.
What is ComplyAdvantage, and which banks use it?
ComplyAdvantage is a private, London-based AML software vendor founded in 2014 by Charles Delingpole and run since 2022 by CEO Vatsa Narasimha. It is backed by Balderton, Index Ventures, Ontario Teachers', Goldman Sachs and Andreessen Horowitz. Its Mesh platform screens customers and payments against the company's own sanctions, PEP and adverse-media data and uses AI agents to close routine alerts. None of our 100 banks is named as a customer. Starter plans are published from $99 a month; enterprise pricing is quote-based.
Category
Founded
2014
Headquarters
London, UK (hubs in New York, Lisbon, Singapore and Cluj-Napoca)
Ownership
Private; backed by Balderton Capital, Index Ventures (led the 2019 Series B), Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (led the $50 million 2020 Series C), Goldman Sachs Asset Management (2021 Series C extension to $70 million) and Andreessen Horowitz (joined with the April 2024 Golden acquisition). No valuation has been disclosed by the company.[9][10][11][15][1]
Deployment
SaaS (cloud-based Mesh platform, API-first); screening and monitoring also listed on AWS Marketplace
Pricing
Self-service Starter Plan priced by monitored entities (100 to 2,000), billed monthly or annually by card, with an optional flat-fee Agentic AI add-on; Enterprise plan (unlimited usage, payment screening, transaction monitoring) sold through sales
Banks among the 100
0
- ComplyAdvantage launched Mesh on October 27, 2025 as an AI-native platform unifying customer and company screening, customer risk scoring, transaction monitoring and real-time payments analysis, with an agentic AI 'teammate' called Cassie.
- It publishes self-service Starter Plan prices for 100 to 2,000 monitored entities, from $99 a month billed annually (Essentials) or $149 a month (with the Agentic AI add-on); the Enterprise plan, which adds payment screening and transaction monitoring, is sold through sales.
- The company says more than 3,000 enterprises across 75 countries use its platform (vendor-reported, October 2025), up from more than 1,000 clients in 2022 and 350 clients in 2019.
- Funding disclosed by the company: a $30 million Series B led by Index Ventures (January 2019), a $50 million Series C led by Ontario Teachers' (July 2020, total raised $88 million) extended to $70 million with Goldman Sachs in May 2021; in April 2024 it acquired Golden, a San Francisco knowledge-graph company, and Andreessen Horowitz joined as an investor.
- Its AI agents clear low-risk screening and monitoring alerts; ComplyAdvantage says they resolve approximately 85% of routine alerts, mark profiles as false positives only when they find definitive conflicts, and leave true positives to a human (vendor-reported).
- ComplyAdvantage names Santander UK, not Santander's US bank, as a customer: its case study says Santander UK cut corporate onboarding from a 12-day mean cycle time to 2 days using its adverse-media API.
- A March 2026 partnership embeds ComplyAdvantage risk data in the FactSet workstation for corporate-banking relationship managers; the release cites feedback from Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo on onboarding workload but does not name them as ComplyAdvantage customers.
What does ComplyAdvantage sell to banks?
| Product | What it does | Status |
|---|---|---|
| ComplyAdvantage Mesh[16][3] | The cloud platform, relaunched as AI-native in October 2025, that joins the company's risk data, screening and monitoring applications, agentic workflows and case management in one system. | Generally available |
| Customer Screening and Company Screening[7][3] | Onboarding checks of individuals and companies against the company's sanctions and watchlist, PEP/RCA and adverse-media data, via API or case management. | Generally available |
| Ongoing Monitoring[7][3] | Continuous re-screening of existing customers and companies that alerts when their risk status changes. | Generally available |
| Transaction Monitoring[5][16] | AML transaction monitoring with configurable rules and AI agents that clear routine false positives and escalate complex patterns with written reasoning. | Generally available |
| Payment Screening[21] | Real-time sanctions name screening of payments across bank, card, remittance and crypto rails that can hold a payment for review; migrated onto Mesh on May 19, 2026, adding repeat-false-positive muting and no-code match tuning. | Generally available |
| Agentic workflows (Cassie and Otto agents)[4][7] | AI agents that auto-remediate level-1 alerts: Cassie for cases raised at onboarding, Otto for ongoing-monitoring cases, plus a transaction monitoring agent; every agent action is logged in the same audit trail as human analysts. | Generally available |
| Financial crime risk intelligence (sanctions, PEPs, adverse media data)[8][20][18] | The company's proprietary database of sanctions and watchlists, politically exposed persons and relatives/close associates, and LLM-classified adverse media, sold with the applications and to partners such as Sumsub and FactSet. | Generally available |
How much does ComplyAdvantage cost?
How it is charged: Self-service Starter Plan priced by monitored entities (100 to 2,000), billed monthly or annually by card, with an optional flat-fee Agentic AI add-on; Enterprise plan (unlimited usage, payment screening, transaction monitoring) sold through sales.
| Product | Plan | List price | Unit | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ComplyAdvantage Starter Plan (self-service) | Starter Plan Essentials, annual billing[7][6] | $99 | per month billed annually, up to 100 monitored entities (up to 2,000: $319 per month) | Sep 24, 2026 |
| ComplyAdvantage Starter Plan (self-service) | Starter Plan Essentials, monthly billing[7] | $119 | per month billed monthly, up to 100 monitored entities (up to 2,000: $383 per month) | Sep 24, 2026 |
| ComplyAdvantage Starter Plan (self-service) | Agentic Starter Plan, annual billing[7] | $149 | per month billed annually, up to 100 monitored entities (up to 2,000: $479 per month) | Sep 24, 2026 |
| ComplyAdvantage Starter Plan (self-service) | Agentic Starter Plan, monthly billing[7] | $179 | per month billed monthly, up to 100 monitored entities (up to 2,000: $575 per month) | Sep 24, 2026 |
Starter Plan prices are published on ComplyAdvantage's own site; the annual-billing figures are monthly rates (the page's headline reads 'from $100/month (billed annually)' although the table column is headed 'Price (annually)'). Monitored entities beyond the plan are charged at 1.5 times the per-unit rate in the next billing cycle, and the minimum contract is 100 monitored entities. Enterprise pricing, the tier a bank would buy for payment screening and transaction monitoring, is not published ('Talk to Sales').
Which banks use ComplyAdvantage?
None of the 100 largest US banks covered on this site is publicly named as a ComplyAdvantage customer as of Sep 24, 2026. Customers the company names are listed in the key points above.
Among the 100 largest US banks on this site, from sources that name the bank: the bank, ComplyAdvantage or the press. Status is the furthest stage a source confirms.
What is ComplyAdvantage Mesh?
Cloud-based platform launched as AI-native on October 27, 2025, combining the company's proprietary financial crime risk data, customer and company screening, customer risk scoring, transaction monitoring and payment screening in one system, with agentic workflows (the Cassie agent) and a shared case manager.[16][3][2]
What has ComplyAdvantage done, and when?
- May 19, 2026
Payment Screening moves onto Mesh[21]
ComplyAdvantage migrated its Payment Screening product onto Mesh, adding low-latency name screening across bank, card, remittance and crypto rails, intelligent muting of repeat false positives and no-code tuning.
- Mar 26, 2026
Mesh becomes the screening layer inside Sumsub[20]
Sumsub made ComplyAdvantage Mesh the intelligence layer for AML screening across its KYC, KYB and transaction monitoring products.
- Mar 19, 2026
Ranked #25 in Chartis FCC50 2026[19]
Chartis Research ranked ComplyAdvantage 25th in its Financial Crime and Compliance50 and gave it a category award for predicate crime management.
- Mar 3, 2026
FactSet partnership for corporate banking[18]
ComplyAdvantage risk data was embedded in the FactSet workstation so corporate-banking relationship managers can run risk assessment, monitoring and onboarding checks in one tool.
- Dec 16, 2025
Sutherland partnership for banks and fintechs[17]
Sutherland and ComplyAdvantage launched a joint AI financial-crime compliance offering combining Sutherland's financial-crime services with Mesh risk intelligence.
- Oct 27, 2025
Launches Mesh as an AI-native platform[16]
Mesh unified screening, customer risk scoring, transaction monitoring and payments analysis with an agentic AI teammate, Cassie; the company said more than 3,000 enterprises in 75 countries use its platform.
- Apr 24, 2024
Acquires Golden; Andreessen Horowitz joins[15]
ComplyAdvantage acquired Golden (Golden Recursion Inc), a San Francisco knowledge-graph company, to feed more data sources into its ingestion layer; a16z joined its investors and the company reported more than 1,000 enterprises in 75 countries.
- Aug 23, 2023
Joins AWS ISV Accelerate and AWS Marketplace[14]
ComplyAdvantage listed its sanctions, PEPs, adverse media, customer screening and monitoring solution on AWS Marketplace and joined AWS's co-sell program.
- Oct 13, 2022
Vatsa Narasimha becomes CEO[13]
COO Vatsa Narasimha was named CEO and founder Charles Delingpole became Executive Chairman; the company reported 450+ employees, more than 1,000 clients and ARR growth of nearly 80% the prior year.
- May 20, 2021
Goldman Sachs extends Series C to $70 million[11]
The Growth Equity team at Goldman Sachs Asset Management invested on undisclosed terms; the company also launched ComplyLaunch, free AML tools for start-ups.
- Jul 28, 2020
$50 million Series C led by Ontario Teachers'[10]
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan led the round through its Teachers' Innovation Platform, with Index Ventures and Balderton participating, bringing total investment to $88 million.
- Jan 30, 2019
$30 million Series B led by Index Ventures[9]
Index Ventures led the round with existing investor Balderton Capital; the company reported 350 clients in 45 countries and said it reduces false positives by 70 percent on average (vendor-reported).
- Jan 1, 2014
What do banks use ComplyAdvantage for?
| Use | What it does | Status | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sanctions, PEP and adverse-media screening[12][3] | Screening customers and companies at onboarding and continuously afterwards against the company's own risk database; Santander UK uses its adverse-media API in corporate onboarding. | In production | AML / KYC |
| Transaction monitoring and payment screening[21][5] | AML transaction monitoring and real-time sanctions screening of payments that can hold a payment before it is processed. | In production | AML / KYC |
| AI agents for alert remediation[4][8][7] | Cassie and Otto agents clear level-1 screening and monitoring alerts and a transaction monitoring agent drafts rationale notes; true positives remain a human decision. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| LLM classification of adverse media and STR drafting[8] | An LLM pipeline classifies adverse-media articles by entity and crime type, and generative AI helps prepare suspicious transaction reports. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| Model governance the bank can review[8] | ComplyAdvantage says every production model has a named owner, a signed model requirements document it can produce on request, a risk rating and model review board approval. | In production | Model risk management |
What has ComplyAdvantage disclosed in numbers?
| Metric | Value | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise customers (vendor-reported) | More than 3,000 enterprises across 75 countries (more than 1,000 in October 2022 and April 2024; 350 clients in January 2019)[16][13][15][9] | Oct 27, 2025 |
| Funding disclosed | $88 million raised in total after the $50 million Series C (July 2020); Series C extended to $70 million with Goldman Sachs (May 2021); 'over $100 million' by October 2022[10][11][13] | Oct 13, 2022 |
| Alerts cleared by AI agents (vendor-reported) | Approximately 85% of routine alerts resolved autonomously; the Mesh page says 65-85% of profiles are processed without human intervention[4][3] | Jun 11, 2026 |
| False positives and investigation time (vendor-reported) | False positives cut by 70% and investigations sped up by up to 84% with the Cassie agent[16] | Oct 27, 2025 |
| Adverse-media ingestion (vendor-reported) | About 8 million articles a day from more than 11,000 curated domains in 11 languages[8] | Jul 8, 2026 |
| Scale and growth in 2022 (vendor-reported) | 450+ employees, more than 1 billion searches facilitated, 150 million entities monitored daily, ARR up nearly 80% in the prior year[13] | Oct 13, 2022 |
| Santander UK onboarding cycle (vendor case study) | Mean corporate onboarding cycle cut from 12 days to 2 days, measured against Santander UK's prior process[12] | Feb 25, 2021 |
“Compliance teams are losing ground in an asymmetric battle.”[16]
Vatsa Narasimha · CEO, ComplyAdvantage · Oct 27, 2025
“When we introduced the Mesh platform last year, our goal was to redefine how compliance teams interact with risk intelligence.”[21]
Mark Watson · Chief Product and Technology Officer, ComplyAdvantage · May 19, 2026
“We want to ensure that compliance is no longer a bottleneck for growth.”[18]
Vatsa Narasimha · CEO, ComplyAdvantage · Mar 3, 2026
Who runs ComplyAdvantage?
Which rules apply to a bank using ComplyAdvantage?
| Authority | Why it matters here | Documents |
|---|---|---|
| FinCEN | ComplyAdvantage's screening, transaction monitoring and agent-drafted rationale feed a bank's BSA/AML program and suspicious activity reporting; the 2018 joint statement lets a bank pilot such tools without presuming supervisory action, and FinCEN's April 2026 program proposal would weigh effective use of AI when assessing that program. | 2018 Joint Statement on BSA/AML Innovation 2026 AML/CFT Program Proposed Rule |
| Federal Reserve | The risk-scoring, adverse-media classification and alert-clearing agents are third-party models; SR 26-2 replaced the 2021 BSA/AML model-risk statement, so a bank validating ComplyAdvantage's models uses the general model-risk framework, and SR 23-4 sets third-party risk expectations for the relationship. | SR 26-2 SR 23-4 |
| OCC | A national bank that outsources sanctions screening or transaction monitoring to ComplyAdvantage manages it as a critical third party under OCC Bulletin 2023-17, and validates the vendor's AML models, including agents that close alerts, under OCC Bulletin 2026-13. | OCC Bulletin 2023-17 OCC Bulletin 2026-13 |
| Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) | Payment Screening and customer screening check names against OFAC and other sanctions lists; the bank, not the vendor, remains liable for a sanctioned payment it processes, so list-update speed and match-tuning settings are part of the bank's own sanctions controls. |
Linked authorities have a page in the AI Regulation Tracker; the others are named for completeness.
What should a bank note before buying ComplyAdvantage?
Analysis by BankingNewsAI from the sources cited on this page. Observations, not advice or a recommendation.
01
Starter prices are public; bank-scale pricing is not
ComplyAdvantage publishes Starter Plan prices for up to 2,000 monitored entities, but transaction monitoring and payment screening sit in the Enterprise plan, whose pricing is not published.
02
No US top-100 bank is named as a customer
The named bank customer in ComplyAdvantage's own case studies is Santander UK; its customer stories otherwise name fintechs, payment firms and brokers. The FactSet release mentions Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo only as sources of feedback on onboarding workload.
03
Performance figures are vendor-reported and vary by page
False-positive reduction is given as 70% (release boilerplate), up to 82% (Mesh page) and 65-85% of profiles auto-processed (agentic claims); none is independently audited in the sources reviewed, and case-study gains are measured against each customer's prior process.
04
The agent design keeps true positives with humans
ComplyAdvantage says its agent marks a profile as a false positive only when it finds a definitive, explainable conflict and otherwise returns it for human review, with every action in the same audit trail as analysts.
05
The data is the vendor's own
Screening runs on ComplyAdvantage's proprietary sanctions, PEP and adverse-media database rather than a third-party feed, which the company says lets it update sanctions lists in minutes; the same data is resold through partners such as Sumsub and FactSet.
06
Funding disclosures stop in 2021
The last priced round the company announced was the Goldman Sachs extension of its Series C in May 2021; the 2024 Andreessen Horowitz stake came with the Golden acquisition on undisclosed terms, and no valuation has been published.
What are the alternatives to ComplyAdvantage?
NICE Actimize
Fraud, AML, sanctions screening, KYC, case management and trade surveillance software for banks, on X-Sight and Xceed platforms.
Hawk
AML transaction monitoring, sanctions and customer screening, fraud prevention and AI investigation agents for banks and payment firms.
Quantexa
Decision Intelligence platform: entity resolution and network analytics for AML, KYC and fraud; Cloud AML SaaS for US mid-size banks.
Unit21
Fraud and AML platform: transaction monitoring, screening, case management and SAR filing, with AI agents that run alert investigations.
SymphonyAI
Financial-crime software for banks: AML transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, KYC, payment fraud and AI investigation agents.
How much does ComplyAdvantage cost?
ComplyAdvantage publishes Starter Plan prices on its own site: the Essentials plan starts at $99 a month billed annually ($119 billed monthly) for up to 100 monitored entities, rising to $319 a month for 2,000; the Agentic plan, which adds AI agents that clear routine alerts, starts at $149 a month billed annually. Enterprise pricing, which covers transaction monitoring, payment screening and unlimited usage, is not published.
Which banks use ComplyAdvantage?
None of the 100 largest US banks tracked here is named by ComplyAdvantage as a customer in the sources reviewed. Its own case study names Santander UK, which uses its adverse-media API in corporate onboarding. ComplyAdvantage says more than 3,000 enterprises in 75 countries use its platform, mostly fintechs, payment companies, brokers and crypto firms among those it names.
Who owns ComplyAdvantage?
ComplyAdvantage is privately held. Its founder, Charles Delingpole, is Executive Chairman, and its investors are Balderton Capital, Index Ventures, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Andreessen Horowitz. Disclosed funding totals over $100 million, including a $50 million Series C led by Ontario Teachers' in 2020 that Goldman Sachs extended to $70 million in 2021. No valuation is published.
Is ComplyAdvantage a bank or a regulated financial institution?
No. ComplyAdvantage is a software and data vendor. Banks that use it remain responsible for their own BSA/AML and sanctions compliance and must manage it as a third party under interagency guidance. The company also states that it is not a consumer reporting agency and that its data may not be used for credit, employment or other FCRA-covered decisions.
What is ComplyAdvantage Mesh?
Mesh is ComplyAdvantage's cloud platform, relaunched as AI-native on October 27, 2025. It combines the company's own sanctions, PEP and adverse-media data with customer and company screening, ongoing monitoring, customer risk scoring, transaction monitoring and, since May 2026, payment screening, plus AI agents (Cassie and Otto) that clear routine alerts and a shared case manager and audit trail.
What do ComplyAdvantage's AI agents do?
Cassie reviews alerts raised at customer onboarding and Otto reviews alerts from ongoing monitoring; a transaction monitoring agent analyses transaction history and writes rationale notes. ComplyAdvantage says they resolve about 85% of routine alerts, clear a profile only on a definitive, explainable conflict and leave true positives to human analysts. These are vendor claims.
How does ComplyAdvantage compare to NICE Actimize?
ComplyAdvantage is a private, cloud-only AML vendor that builds its own sanctions, PEP and adverse-media data and publishes entry-level prices; NICE Actimize is a business unit of NICE Ltd that sells fraud and AML platforms to large banks, including KeyBank among the banks tracked here, with pricing not published. ComplyAdvantage names no US top-100 bank as a customer in the sources reviewed.
- About Us
- ComplyAdvantage | AI-driven fraud & AML risk detection
- Mesh
- Agentic Workflows
- AML Transaction Monitoring Software Powered by AI
- Pricing
- Buy now | Starter Plan Essentials with Agentic
- How ComplyAdvantage uses AI throughout the financial crime risk management lifecycle
- Anti-financial crime AI-platform ComplyAdvantage raises $30 million to tackle terrorist funding, money-laundering and fraud
- ComplyAdvantage Closes US$50M Series C to Fuel Growth and Expansion in Fight Against Financial Crime
- ComplyAdvantage Extends Series C Round To $70 Million With New Goldman Sachs Investment
- Santander: KYC/AML Case Study
- ComplyAdvantage Names Vatsa Narasimha As Chief Executive Officer
- ComplyAdvantage Joins AWS ISV Accelerate Program and AWS Marketplace
- ComplyAdvantage Acquires Golden, Expanding Financial Crime Intelligence Offering
- ComplyAdvantage launches AI-native platform to combat surging financial crime
- Sutherland and ComplyAdvantage launch AI-native "unified FinCrime compliance" solution to combat sophisticated, next generation financial crime
- FactSet and ComplyAdvantage partner to accelerate time-to-revenue for tier-1 corporate banks
- ComplyAdvantage ranked #25 globally in Chartis FCC50 and named Category Leader in predicate crime management
- Sumsub and ComplyAdvantage announce strategic partnership to enhance AML screening for compliance teams
- ComplyAdvantage integrates real-time payment screening into its AI-native Mesh platform to combat global sanctions risk
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