ThetaRay Raises $31M To Accelerate Cross-Border, Fraud-Free Payments

Israeli cybersecurity and big data analytics company ThetaRay has completed a new $31 million funding round led by Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) and global VC Benhamou Global Ventures, the Hod HaSharon-based company announced on Tuesday.

The new investors in this round include Eric Benhamou, who invested through Benhamou Global Ventures, and Saints fund, which 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.

Founded in 2013, ThetaRay developed an AI-powered, transaction-monitoring software solution for cross-border payments that allows banks to expand their business opportunities while combating fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes. The company has raised more than $90 million to date.

ThetaRay said it intends to use the capital to expand further into the financial market with a cloud-based version of its products and making them available to any organization that deals in cross-border payments.

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, the company says.

Alongside the funding, ThetaRay also announced the governments of Nigeria and Ukraine have successfully implemented their solutions fighting terrorism and corruption, and joining some of the largest banks in the world implementing ThetaRay’s solution to thwart global financial crime.

“We are on the verge of a real revolution in securing the global financial system,” said Mark Gazit, CEO of ThetaRay. “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 solution offers a unique and reliable solution allowing full detection of known and unknown threats as well as a 99 percent 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.

The conduct of the financial markets in the post-coronavirus pandemic era has significantly increased the volume of cross-border money transfers, ThetaRay explained in a statement. This market suffers from being targeted for financial crimes of theft, fraud, and money laundering. To 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 experience severe difficulties in cross border payments between banks as well as business uncertainty and exclusion from the financial trade system.

“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,” said JVP founder and chairman Erel Margalit, who is on the Board of Directors at ThetaRay. “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.”