ThetaRay, the Israeli Technology Company That Has Developed a Revolutionary Solution Enabling the Acceleration of Cross-border Payments Between Banks, Raises $31 Million in New Round of Funding Led By the JVP and BGV Funds

- ThetaRay's solution enables the world's largest banks, financial institutions and businesses to increase and simplify the volume of transfers, ensuring their timely completion and monitored costs, without fear of being used for money laundering, terrorist financing, human trafficking and narco-trafficking

NEW YORK, May 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- ThetaRay, an Israeli technology company that enables the acceleration of cross-border payments between banks while protecting financial institutions from financial crime, today announced that it has completed a new $31 million fundraising round. New investors include Eric Benhamou, investing through Benhamou Global Ventures, and Saints Fund, which has appointed one of its managing partners as an observer to the ThetaRay board. Existing investors OurCrowd, Bank Hapoalim, SBT and others also participated in the round.

This round brings ThetaRay's total funding to more than $90 million. The company intends to use the capital raised to complete the crime prevention revolution by expanding the cross-border payment market that is currently valuated at $25T a year, mitigating financial crime by marketing a cloud version of its products, and expanding its target audiences to any organization that deals in cross-border payments.

Along with raising money, ThetaRay announces that the Governments of Nigeria & the Ukraine have successfully implemented ThetaRay's solutions fighting terrorism and corruption. These governments have joined some of the largest banks in the world, including Banco Santander, putting ThetaRay's revolutionary solution at the forefront of international commerce and the war against global financial crime.

ThetaRay's Financial Crimes Prevention Solution is designed to instill certainty and reduce risks in cross-border payments, and to protect banks, fintech companies and private companies that offer payment transfers. It protects them against attempts to abuse their money transfer platforms for sophisticated money laundering. The solution reduces total cost of ownership (TCO), quickly increases revenues, improves customer service, and boosts ROI.

One of the most prominent phenomena in the conduct of financial markets in the post-Corona era has been the significant increase in volume of cross-border money transfers. This market, estimated at $25 trillion a year, suffers from being targeted for financial crime, including theft, fraud and money laundering. To address this issue and prevent the global economy from collapsing, governments and law enforcement agencies around the world have stepped up control over remittances and tightened enforcement, creating blockages in global commercial conduct. As a result of these blockages, many businesses are experiencing severe difficulties with cross-border payments between banks, as well as business uncertainty and exclusion from the financial trade system.

More than $10 billion are currently being invested in protection measures to address these challenges. ThetaRay's solution, designed to release the blockages within the international trade arteries, is now available in the cloud. As a result, the company can offer a secure transfer path to the global financial system, which includes banks of all sizes, governments, fintech companies, payment service providers (PSPs) and all currencies, including digital ones. For the first time, financial organizations -- both private and government -- will be able to provide better services to their customers and increase their revenues significantly while reducing their risks, lowering their operational costs, and improving their ability to withstand intensifying compliance demands.

Erel Margalit, JVP founder and Chairman, and ThetaRay's Board Chairman, said: "From a company that led the field of AML (Anti-Money Laundering) technologically, ThetaRay is changing the picture and bringing revolutionary products to the field of Cross-Border Payments, which will allow banks to dramatically increase, their income enabling safe and unrestricted money transfers in both large and small banks. This revolution will enable many organizations and people around the world to transfer money faster, more securely and with far fewer fees and stops along the way. What Swift did to the banking world 25 years ago, ThetaRay will do to the banking world in the next ten years. Business security and co-operation between countries will be possible when financial cybercriminals are left out of the secure system that ThetaRay has created together with the banks."

Mark Gazit, CEO, ThetaRay, said: "We are on the verge of a real revolution in securing the global financial system. During this period, when the cross-border payment network has become the lifeblood of the world trade infrastructure, ThetaRay is here to instill certainty and reduce risks in secure cross-border payments. Furthermore, ThetaRay's unique and reliable solution allows full detection of known and unknown threats, as well as a 99% alert reduction compared to legacy systems. Our target market has become almost endless with the launch of our cloud solution, which guarantees the company's aggressive growth in the coming years. We thank our existing investors, especially JVP, for their trust in the company and its solutions, and welcome the new investors that have joined us."

Eric Benhamou, Founder and General Partner of BGV, added: "ThetaRay's technological prowess is truly impressive. Its product enables financial entities to reduce the fraud risks associated with correspondent banking, reduce operational costs, improve their service and increase profits. I am confident that the investment in ThetaRay will produce significant return for BGV and I am happy to back a world class team driving a disruptive innovation in the global payments market."

ThetaRay has shown consistent and significant year-over-year growth. The cloud version of ThetaRay's products will allow its customers to compete successfully in the payment transfer system that has traditionally included only large banks that can ensure regulatory compliance and reliability. ThetaRay's customers, some of which are the largest international tier 1 banks, are also exploring the cloud solution to provide better service to their customers, understanding that they can significantly increase their revenues while reducing risks and lowering operational costs.

The solution is based on an algorithm developed over a decade by leading mathematicians, and is based on advanced machine learning that can detect signs of money laundering before it is performed. The particularly low percentage of false alarms also contributes to the efficiency of the solution for banks that deal with money laundering risks and various operational risks. ThetaRay has also won many awards as the industry-leading technological solution for financial institutions' regulation and compliance.

About ThetaRay:

ThetaRay's groundbreaking, AI powered, Transaction Monitoring SaaS solution for Cross Border Payments allows banks to expand their business opportunities by achieving safe and reliable cross-border payment monitorization. ThetaRay's technology is the only packaged SaaS offerings that analyzes SWIFT traffic, risk indicators and client/payer/payee data to detect anomalies indicating money laundering activity across complex, cross-border transaction paths. It is also one of the only AI-driven AML solutions that can be easily integrated and deployed within days, with minimal implementation required. ThetaRay's solution increases detection capabilities for both supervised and unsupervised data, and includes profiling and advanced analytics assessments, all in one platform. Financial organizations that rely on highly heterogeneous and complex ecosystems benefit greatly from Thetaray's unmatchable low false positive rates.

Media contact:
Mark Prindle
Fusion PR
646-452-7109
mark.prindle@fusionpr.com