Condukt raises £7.5m seed to automate real‑time KYB for fintechs
This article covers Condukt which has raised £7.5m to build a real‑time, agentic approach to know‑your‑business (KYB) checks for financial services. The funding is intended to expand commercial partnerships, accelerate go‑to‑market and hire engineering talent, supporting fintechs, banks and other regulated businesses facing rising compliance costs.
Condukt, a fintech startup, has raised £7.5 million to roll out a real-time, agentic approach to know-your-business (KYB) checks for financial services. The seed funding arrives as firms face rising compliance costs and tougher enforcement, and the company says it will use the cash to expand partnerships, accelerate go-to-market and hire engineering talent as it emerges from stealth.
Why it matters
Compliance budgets across financial services are increasing. Condukt cites a Forrester estimate that businesses spend about $206 billion a year to meet financial crime compliance standards, with labour costs a major driver. Regulators have also stepped up enforcement: global anti-money laundering fines exceeded $6 billion by July 2025.
Those pressures are prompting a rethink of periodic, manual checks in favour of continuous monitoring. If real-time systems can reliably detect changes in a business as they happen, payments providers, banks and other regulated firms could reduce operational friction and speed onboarding.
Inside the product
Condukt describes its platform as a real-time data layer that synchronises with a client’s operations plus an agentic automation layer intended to replace manual KYB workflows. The approach focuses on detecting business changes as they occur rather than relying on static, periodic checks.
The company lists several customers from across payments and banking: Wise, Tide, Mollie, Rakuten, Shift4, Flatpay and myPOS. These names span cross-border payments, business banking and merchant acquiring, illustrating how continuous KYB could be applied across payment rails and merchant services to spot changes in ownership, risk profile or activity.
Condukt operates from London and Porto. The team includes former engineers from Revolut and Meta.
Who are the investors?
Condukt raised £7.5 million in a seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and MMC Ventures, with participation from Cocoa Ventures.
In the announcement, Alex Schmitt, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, said:
Condukt is truly redefining compliance with its real time data infrastructure, delivering a foundational shift from periodic to perpetual oversight. Having proven its technology with leading fintech firms, Condukt is now emerging from stealth with the commercial maturity and client base to lead a new category of always on, agentic compliance.
In the announcement, Ollie Richards, Partner at MMC Ventures, said:
The compliance market is at an inflection point. Condukt’s vision for agentic, perpetual KYB represents the future of how financial institutions will manage risk, growth, and operations in tandem. The team’s depth of domain expertise and proven execution make them uniquely positioned to define this category.
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Founder perspective
Condukt was founded in May 2023 by Paulo Guichard and Bhasker Rao, who met at Revolut Business after holding senior roles at SumUp and Square (now Block). They position compliance as a potential enabler of growth rather than a bottleneck.
In the announcement, Paulo Guichard, Co‑founder & CEO at Condukt, said:
Compliance should be a growth enabler, not a bottleneck. Our vision is an agentic onboarding solution that fully automates KYB checks. We designed Condukt as an always on nervous system that lives and breathes real time data. By combining this proprietary data infrastructure with AI agents, we eliminate repetitive checks and ensure compliance keeps pace with any business change.
In the announcement, Bhasker Rao, Co‑founder at Condukt, said:
With regulators moving towards perpetual KYB, and the cost of meeting these demands via manual processes weighing heavy on balance sheets, compliance teams face a perfect storm. Automated monitoring and live insights from open source data are fast becoming essential. Our infrastructure delivers exactly this - allowing regulated businesses to stay continuously compliant, without slowing down their operations or suffering from burgeoning costs.
The founders say the new funding will be used to deepen financial institution partnerships, push commercial adoption and hire more engineers.
The bigger picture
Condukt’s launch sits at the intersection of growing regulatory focus on continuous compliance and wider adoption of AI and automation in financial services. For UK and European fintechs, tools that reduce manual compliance work could help contain costs and speed onboarding, particularly as regulators express expectations for ongoing KYB.
The company’s roster of clients and the seed backing suggest demand for infrastructure that integrates real-time data with automation. If enforcement and compliance budgets continue to rise, more regulated businesses across the UK and Europe may look for similar approaches to manage risk without creating operational drag.
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