Tookitaki, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm which develops artificial intelligence-based sustainable compliance solutions for financial institutions, has closed its Series A funding round, raising $19.2 million (approximately Rs 137.43 crore at current exchange rates).
It added $11.7 million to a previously announced fundraise from cross-stage financial technology-focussed venture fund Viola Fintech and global venture firm SIG Asia Investment, Tookitaki said in a statement.
Other investors that participated in the funding round include Nomura Holdings through its VC arm Nomura Incubation Investment Ltd Partnership, Illuminate Financial, Jungle Ventures and SEEDs Capital Pte. Ltd, an investment arm of the Singapore government.
The company had raised $7.5 million (around Rs 54 crore) in March as first part of Series A from Illuminate Financial and Jungle Ventures, a VC firm based in Singapore.
Abhishek Chatterjee, founder and chief executive officer at Tookitaki, said the funds will be used for enhancing its product offerings in the anti-money laundering and reconciliation segments. It will also use the capital to recruit more engineers, data scientists, and other support staff members across its offices in India, Singapore, and the United States.
The company, which is operated by Tookitaki Technologies Pvt. Ltd, was founded in 2014. The firm uses its advanced methods like artificial intelligence and machine learning, distributed systems and business expertise to develop solutions that maximise efficiency and the effectiveness of compliance processes.
In 2015, Tookitaki raised $1 million in seed funding from Jungle Ventures. The round also saw participation from Japan- and Singapore-based VC fund Rebright Partners, and sBlume Ventures.
Deals in the SaaS segment
The SaaS segment across industries has been buzzing with investor activity in recent months. The rapid progress of frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence, natural language processing and branches of machine learning has sprung up a number of startups using the SaaS model.
Earlier this month, cloud-based software firm Freshworks Inc. raised $150 million (Rs 1,081.22 crore) in a Series H round led by Sequoia Capital, CapitalG (formerly Google Capital) and Accel, which is the company’s first investor.
In September, enterprise human resources management platform Darwinbox raised $15 million in a Series B funding round led by venture capital firm Sequoia India. Similarly, multinational payments technology company Mastercard Inc. invested in digital identity solutions-focused startup Syntizen.