​My career has taken me to many parts of the global capital markets industry – both in trading and technology. I am very proud of being part of the success in building a trading and clearing system like Dataphile Software Ltd., now part of Broadridge; Canchek, an anti-money laundering and economic sanctions compliance system; and, Smarten Up Institute, a securities industry education provider.
 
So as a serial entrepreneur I could not pass up the opportunity when Ani Markova and Ingrid Hibbard came to the founders of Canchek a year-and-a-half ago and asked us to find a solution – and did so using Canchek’s software to develop an ESG reporting system.
 
From the beginning, Canchek’s goal has been to provide affordable solutions to small to mid-sized firms in the securities industry that don’t have the need for or resources to implement the high-priced compliance systems designed for larger companies.  
 
With wise counsel from resources industry veterans, Ingrid Hibbard and Mark Thorpe, we recognized that the same kind of approach is needed in the ESG world.
 
The growing investor demand and fast-changing regulatory environment for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosures places significant financial and administrative burdens on junior and mid-tier companies. We set out to develop an affordable solution that would help these companies aggregate, report, and manage their ESG data, and enable them to meet the information demands of capital providers who are looking to properly assess risks and opportunities.
 
​As the scope of standards and disclosures has grown, so too has our team of talented developers and sustainability professionals.  Our biggest asset is the energy that the team puts into creating a platform for our customers that is simple to use, but robust enough to capture all globally recognized standards and frameworks. It’s very gratifying to see the speed at which we have been able to deliver our solution, now in both English and Spanish, as well as the multiple added features. 

Tell us a little about your organization and why you got into this space
Halo Ai is the first holistic risk and compliance management platform dedicated to helping FinTech companies win. The second leading cause of failure for VC-backed FinTech companies is compliance issues. What it comes down to is that FinTech founders focus on building incredible companies, venture-backed by millions of dollars, and making impactful transformations to how financial services are delivered and utilized. But so many founders don’t account for compliance as part of their strategy. They don't understand it, don’t want to deal with, and have no idea where to start. Feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed, they keep kicking the can down the road, thinking they’ll deal with it “later”. They fail to realize the serious ramifications of operating in a non-compliant fashion. From inability to obtain or renew licensing with Banks and processing partners, to regulatory fines, to business disruption. They then try to fix the problem by throwing people at it. Lots of people. Expensive people. They end up bleeding cash to consultants and others to stay afloat but what they get is largely a temporary fix. And that's what we're solving with Halo Ai. We’re creating an easy solution that FinTech companies can plug into and cut through all of this in a speedy and cost-effective way.
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​   Meet Jennifer Arnold, Co-Founder and CEO of MinervaAI 
   
​   Tell us a little about your organization and why you got into this space?

MinervaAI is a modern deep-learning platform designed to automate real-time client risk assessment. “She’s” created by industry experts and ideal for KYC/onboarding, enhanced due diligence, investigations, and ongoing monitoring for AML/CFT. MinervaAI instantly leverages billions of pieces of open-source data, delivering deeper, more effective risk assessment results.
 
In less than 30 seconds, MinervaAI performs in-depth screening and risk assessment, contemplating over 4.5 billion data points in 55 languages. This wealth of information is automatically processed, collapsed into a manageable list of high-confidence consensus clusters, and assembled into a single audit-proof investigation report

​My co-founder Victor Tay and I have spent over 20 years in the anti-money laundering discipline at some of Canada’s largest banks. We’ve led significant transformational initiatives that included both large scale organizational and process re-design, including defining and implementing the technology components. One of the biggest challenges we encountered was how to effectively address customer risk assessment and enhanced due diligence in a comprehensive, consistent way. Many organizations still use manual processes or out-dated name matching software that creates false-positives and unnecessary work. This leads to operational backlogs and increased cost, not to mention employee burn-out and dissatisfaction. This creates a negative image of the AML units within an organization. They struggle with the reputation that their approach is “holding the team back” putting their company at a competitive dis-advantage. 

Meet Gord Breese, CEO 

Tell us about how your company Katipult is breaking new ground in helping participants in the private capital markets address the complexity & significant costs associated with meeting regulatory compliance obligations?
 
Katipult provides digital infrastructure to standardize the investment workflow and eliminate transaction redundancy, strengthen compliance, remove friction from the investor experience, and accelerate deal flow. As a result, our product can have a tremendous ROI for our customers and allows them to scale their businesses without incurring the expenses of hiring additional staff.   The key outcome we achieve with our customers is to drive more revenue with less resources and to have staff focused on value added work rather than administration. 
 
Companies that are using manual processes and legacy software systems or excel spreadsheets in their processes are being impacted significantly from both soft and hard costs operationally, and potentially putting themselves offside with compliance in the case of an audit by a regulator. 
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Tell us a little about your organization and why you got into this space.
​For 25 years, Armadillo has been developing one of the most comprehensive datasets in the world for the purposes of KYC and due diligence. Our solution, the Armadillo Hub, is a scalable, cloud–based, end-to-end automated RegTech platform, giving global regulated businesses the tools to conduct the appropriate background checks on corporate and private clients. Our innovative systems have earned us a place on the RegTech100 for 2021 and 2022.
  
The network of information Armadillo has created includes data on 420 million companies, 1 billion businesses and 5 billion individuals worldwide, sourcing information from 1,000 local registries across 220 countries. It is the most thorough KYC, due diligence and compliance solution that exists for regulated financial and professional services businesses. 
 
Armadillo was subject to many inspections in the early years. We passed them all; but saw many parts of the inspection process that could prove problematic for other regulated businesses. As a result, we pivoted away from being a corporate documents provider and increased spending on technology. This created the Armadillo Hub, which allows any regulated business to tap into information from anywhere in the world with ease. 

Meet Jay Meier, SVP North America Operations, Factec

Tell us a little about your organization and why you got into this space.
 
FaceTec, Inc. is the leading global provider of 3D Liveness and 3D Face Matching software for remote identity platforms.  Our technology is currently used by U.S. federal and state governments, numerous foreign/sovereign governments, as well as hundreds of commercial entities to verify, enroll and authenticate citizens, customers, and users.  Examples include the Colorado Mobile Driver License, U.S. Department of Homeland Security which has incorporated FaceTec's technology into Mobile Trusted Traveler-related programs and the Canadian Parliament for remote voter verification.  Over 190,000,000 users worldwide have proven their Liveness remotely with FaceTec on smartphones, tablets, and webcams (including low-end and low-resolution), and with no observable age, gender, or skin-tone biases.
 
To ensure real-world security, FaceTec operates the world’s first-and-only continuous $100,000 Spoof Bounty Program, incentivizing hackers to attempt to beat our biometric security platform.  Our software has successfully defended against over 80,000 bounty program attacks to date, allowing us to gain unmatched experience rebuffing today's most sophisticated threats to remote, access management, identity proofing, and biometric authentication systems.
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Meet Tina Mithra, Founder and CEO, Genesis Risk Consulting
​Tell us a little about your organization and why you got into this space.

​Having spent over 20 years in the financial services industry, across the three lines of defence, (i.e., front-line business, compliance, risk management, and internal audit), I have hands-on experience in designing and implementing enterprise risk and compliance frameworks across global jurisdictions.
 
My vision for Genesis Risk Consulting (GRC), founded in 2020, is to be the boutique consulting firm of choice for helping senior leaders align risk and strategy through balanced, innovative solutions.
 
I identified this niche opportunity through my experience and that of my network. During my time as an executive at a major Canadian bank, I engaged consulting firms for targeted support to address capacity shortfalls or the need for specialized expertise. Through all the initiatives and external engagements, I frequently searched for an industry practitioner who had an appreciation for the challenges we were facing. My goal was to attain a right-sized solution for our requirements and not necessarily one that was implemented elsewhere.
 
I discovered that my peers at other financial institutions often shared the same goal. As such, with a strong vote of confidence from my trusted advisors and network, I set out to address this industry need.
 
Although running a business is by no means easy, it has already been a fulfilling experience. I have witnessed the meaningful contributions GRC has made to our clients during the early stages in our journey