A company that helps hedge funds and banks bust rogue employees just raised $70 million

REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

A visitor speaks to Baidu's robot Xiaodu at the 2015 Baidu World Conference in Beijing, China, September 8, 2015.

• Behavox, a New York-based fintech, just raised $70 million in its latest round of funding, according to a source familiar with the deal.
• The company uses natural language processing, a subset of artificial intelligence, to monitor and analyze employee conversations. This helps financial firms like banks and asset managers to screen for potential rogue activity among their staff.

A New York-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to help banks and asset managers screen for rogue activity among their employees just raised $70 million.

Software company Behavox, which is able to analyze massive amounts of data like employee emails, texts and calls through a technology known as natural language processing, raised 40% more money than it had initially targeted, according to a source familiar with the deal.

It's the latest example of investor interest in fintechs focused on helping firms solve compliance issues, known as "regtech."

As of the third quarter of 2018, investors had poured twice as much funding into regtech companies than in the entire prior year, according to research provider FinTech Global .

And regulations for financial institutions are only getting more complex. A recent survey conducted by Intertrust of 500 financial services executives found 85% expect regtech demand to grow until at least 2020.

Behavox's investors were not disclosed. Citigroup previously led a $20 million round for Behavox in November 2017, which venture capital firm Index Ventures also participated. In November 2017, Behavox was valued at $200 million, though a more recent valuation could not be learned.

A spokesperson for Behavox declined to comment on the funding round.