Oxford Capital Leads Seed Round of FinCrime Dynamics to Revolutionise Financial Crime Prevention 

Over 3 million cases of fraud are reported in the UK every year, shockingly it accounts for nearly 40% of all reported crime. To tackle this, financial institutions are turning to AI but AI requires large amounts of data and access to that data is a challenge. Strict privacy regulations such as GDPR have made it increasingly difficult to obtain the actionable data needed to train these AI fraud detection tools. This shortage of reliable information is a growing concern for the sector, as it limits efforts to stay ahead of sophisticated fraud schemes. 

FinCrime Dynamics, an innovative fintech enabling financial institutions to build better defences against financial crime using criminal behavioural intelligence and data resources, has developed a platform that simulates complex fraudulent behaviours. This allows financial institutions to test their existing detection measures and synthesize the data needed to improve them. 

Oxford Capital led FinCrime Dynamics’ seed investment round, alongside Twin Path Ventures and Syndicate Room, backing founders Stephen Quick and Daniel Turner-Szymkiewicz. 

“Financial crime is evolving every day, especially with the increasing adoption of generative AI by criminals, and it is technology solutions such as FinCrime Dynamics that are the key to staying ahead of it,” said Richard Oakley, Senior Investment Manager for Oxford Capital. “We’re proud to support this innovative work.” 

“FinCrime Dynamics is delighted to now announce our latest fundraise,” Stephen Quick, CEO and co-founder of FinCrime Dynamics said of the successful seed round. “Finding the right investor fit is an incredibly important long-term partnership for any venture. FinCrime Dynamics has always been extremely fortunate to attract a high calibre of investors. We are pleased to have received further support from the team at Twin Path Ventures and from longstanding angel supporters such as Robert Sansom as part of this new round of funding.”  

“We are also thrilled and thankful to our new investors who have joined our journey this round, such as Oxford Capital, Syndicate Room and Ascension. We are particularly excited to be working with our new lead investor Oxford Capital and to welcome Richard Oakley to our Board.” 

About Oxford Capital: Oxford Capital is a specialist investment manager focused on high-potential investments in early and growth stage UK technology companies. With over 25 years of experience, we invest in sectors such as digital health, fintech, and artificial intelligence and have a strong focus on delivering value to our investors. We have invested more than £500m across more than 100 EIS-qualifying companies. 

About FinCrime Dynamics: FinCrime Dynamics provides the data infrastructure to power forward looking and trustworthy defences in the fight against financial crime. Headquartered in Cambridge (UK), the company enables financial institutions to access criminal behavioural intelligence and data resources to test, tune and train anti-financial crime controls. FinCrime Dynamics data platform, Synthetizor®, empowers users to generate financial crime simulations and custom synthetic data to train machine learning with confidence about model quality and typology coverage. 

About the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and the UK Venture Capital sector: The Enterprise Investment Scheme was established in 1994 to encourage investment into small companies with the potential for high growth. The scheme has helped over 56,000 UK companies raise £32 billion. It is an important factor making the UK’s startup ecosystem the most vibrant in Europe. The UK has more unicorn companies than any of its EU partners – more than France and Germany combined. The UK is the third largest venture capital market in the world after the USA and China. 

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Due to the potential for losses, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) considers this investment to be high risk.

What are the key risks?

  1. You could lose all the money you invest
    1. If the business you invest in fails, you are likely to lose 100% of the money you invested. Most start-up businesses fail.
  2. You are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong
    1. Protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), in relation to claims against failed regulated firms, does not cover poor investment performance. Try the FSCS investment protection checker here.
    2. Protection from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) does not cover poor investment performance. If you have a complaint against an FCA-regulated firm, FOS may be able to consider it. Learn more about FOS protection here.
  3. You won’t get your money back quickly
    1. Even if the business you invest in is successful, it may take several years to get your money back. You are unlikely to be able to sell your investment early.
    2. The most likely way to get your money back is if the business is bought by another business or lists its shares on an exchange such as the London Stock Exchange. These events are not common.
    3. If you are investing in a start-up business, you should not expect to get your money back through dividends. Start-up businesses rarely pay these.
  4. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
    1. Putting all your money into a single business or type of investment for example, is risky. Spreading your money across different investments makes you less dependent on any one to do well.
    2. A good rule of thumb is not to invest more than 10% of your money in high-risk investments. https://www.fca.org.uk/investsmart/5-questions-ask-you-invest
  5. The value of your investment can be reduced
    1. The percentage of the business that you own will decrease if the business issues more shares. This could mean that the value of your investment reduces, depending on how much the business grows. Most start-up businesses issue multiple rounds of shares.
    2. These new shares could have additional rights that your shares don’t have, such as the right to receive a fixed dividend, which could further reduce your chances of getting a return on your investment.

 

If you are interested in learning more about how to protect yourself, visit the FCA’s website here.