Participated · Series A · Oct 2019

Apiax provides digital compliance solutions to financial-service firms. The company has opened a Frankfurt office and won initial customers in Germany as part of a market-entry push. Expansion in Germany is being supported by a new investment from Futury Regio Growth Fonds alongside existing backers. The fresh capital and expertise are intended to accelerate growth and enable on‑the‑ground customer support. Apiax reported a strong year in which it gained new customers and strategic partners and strengthened its market position. The startup already maintains offices in London and Singapore. Apiax, founded in 2017, built an award-winning technology that provides easy access to compliance knowledge. Its platform transforms complex regulations into easy-to-use digital compliance rules for companies operating in an increasingly regulated economy. The product is designed to help firms stay focused on core business objectives and deliver high-value customer experiences. Apiax has offices in Zurich, Lisbon and London. The company recently obtained the Monetary Authority of Singapore's FSTI Proof-of-Concept grant to enhance its platform. That grant will support further product development and experimentation in the financial services context. Co-founder Philip Schoch said the funding allows Apiax to take its product development even further. Apiax provides a technology platform that gives everyone access to compliance knowledge and enables companies to build digital solutions which are compliant by design. The company was founded in 2017 and is led by Nicolas Blanchard and Philip Schoch. Its team comprises legal, technology, and product experts with offices in Zurich, Lisbon, and London. Apiax completed a $6.6M Series A to support its growth. The company intends to use the funds to strengthen product development and continue building its interdisciplinary legal and technology team across all locations. The platform and team focus on empowering enterprises with digital compliance solutions. Led by Ralf Huber, Apiax offers a digital compliance management platform that enables external legal experts and in-house legal and compliance teams to collaborate and manage regulations digitally. The platform includes verified, up-to-date digital rule sets and a regulatory cockpit for teams to manage, review and deploy regulatory updates. Its rule engine uses machine-learning practices and is infrastructure independent, running in private or public clouds, and rules can be integrated into any system or process via an API. The company completed the F10 Accelerator program (graduating April 2017) and has joined the Kickstart Accelerator as it prepares to go to market. Apiax intends to use the seed funds to expand operations, continue product development and support market entrance efforts. The company is based in Zurich, Switzerland.

Led · Equity · Sep 2018

Futurae Technologies offers a fully managed customer authentication platform aimed at enterprises, particularly banks. The platform emphasizes high usability and ease of integration to reduce help-desk costs, prevent customer drop-off during digital journeys, and combat fraud. Over the past three years more than 100 banks with users across over 50 countries have selected Futurae as their authentication provider. The ETH Zurich spinoff plans continued European expansion, building on early banking customers in Germany, France and Austria, while accelerating broader international growth. Product development includes adding machine-learning capabilities to detect fraud faster and more accurately while keeping solutions user-friendly. The company has a team of 19 and four founders, including Sandra Tobler (CEO), Nikolaos Karapanos (CTO) and Claudio Marforio (COO and head of product), and intends to grow the team using the new funding. It recently secured CHF 5 million from multiple investors to fund these plans. Futurae Technologies, founded by ETH Zurich security researchers, offers a portfolio of authentication products built around its 'Zero‑Touch' two‑factor solution that authenticates users without any interaction using machine‑learning on ambient noise, ultrasound and contextual information. The company also provides 'One‑Touch' methods, transaction signing, IoT authentication and an API for swift integration into web and mobile applications. Futurae was named a Gartner Cool Vendor 2018 in Identity and Access Management. Sandra Tobler serves as CEO. The firm works with major players in identity and access management within the financial and insurance sectors as well as with fast‑growing startups. Futurae has closed a CHF 2M financing round to accelerate market expansion. Futurae Technologies developed a hands-off two-factor user authentication system called “#Sound-Proof” that uses surrounding sounds to verify two devices. The product records ambient audio from two devices (for example a mobile phone and a computer) within three seconds and compares the samples to grant access without any interaction on the phone. Futurae holds a patent for the solution and positions it as a quick, safe and user-friendly alternative to cumbersome two-stage password confirmations. The company says the solution can cut costs by about 60% for companies and is attractive to financial services, e-commerce, e-health and insurance sectors. Futurae already works with financial market leaders and is conducting pilot projects with Swiss banks. After initial focus on the Swiss market, the company plans to expand into Europe and the United States in the coming years; it was awarded CHF 130,000 at the Venture Kick final to support product release and market entry.