Notabene Secures $14.5M to Boost Crypto AML Solutions

Notabene raises $14.5M in Series B led by DRW VC, with backing from Apollo, ParaFi, and others to advance crypto AML compliance and Travel Rule solutions.

The funds administered by Apollo, Nextblock, ParaFi Capital, and Wintermute participated in the Series B funding round, which DRW VC led.

Funds managed by Apollo, Nextblock, ParaFi Capital, and Wintermute have contributed to the $14.5 million Series B fundraising round headed by DRW Venture Capital for Notabene. This startup assists cryptocurrency trading organizations in adhering to anti-money laundering (AML) regulations.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global AML watchdog, has issued recommendations for regulators known as the “Travel Rule,” which requires cryptocurrency companies such as exchanges, wallet providers, and payment processors to securely exchange information about sender and recipient of transactions to bring the industry into line with the rest of the financial world.

With 165 businesses using the platform, including some of the world’s biggest virtual asset service providers (VASPs), including Copper, OKX, and Ramp, Notabene aims to become a sort of SWIFT for cryptocurrency transactions.

With a deadline approaching at the end of this year for businesses to comply with Europe’s update of its Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR) to include cryptocurrency transactions, Pelle Braendgaard, the CEO of the platform, anticipates an increase in transaction volume on Notabene (an average of about $2 billion in daily transactions).

In an interview, Braendgaard stated, “EU companies will have to report if they’re not getting travel information from, say, a large, unregulated offshore exchange.” “The industry is being forced to comply with this worldwide. Therefore, these EU regulations aim to get things to work internationally on that specific front, not just within the EU.

Because it’s about bringing the sector back to America, Braendgaard thinks that travel rule guidelines will be advanced more aggressively in the United States under the incoming Donald Trump administration, just like it was under the previous Trump administration.

Braendgaard says, “The European Commission wants all cryptocurrency trading to take place in the EU if you look at what they are doing with the TFR and MiCA [the Markets in Crypto Assets regime].” And naturally, the United States will adopt the same strategy. It doesn’t make sense since they’re moving all of this money elsewhere.

Current investors CMT Digital, F-Prime, Green Visor Capital, Illuminate Financial, Jump Capital, Signature Ventures, and Y Combinator were also involved in Notabene’s Series B fundraising round.