Israeli startup Tangos AI said Tuesday it has raised $20 million in seed funding to expand its autonomous artificial intelligence platform designed to automate financial crime investigations for banks, government agencies and intelligence organizations.
The funding round was led by Red Dot Capital Partners, with participation from Leaders Fund, Clarim, Venture Israel, SignalFire, Clutch Capital and Selah Ventures, along with a strategic investment from Bright Data.
Tangos team
(Photo: Nurit Cohen)
Founded in 2025 by entrepreneur Eyal Azoulay, whose previous startups include one acquired by Bank of New York Mellon, Tangos develops AI systems that conduct end-to-end investigations into financial crimes, including money laundering, sanctions evasion and fraud.
The company said its platform is designed to analyze suspicious activity, identify beneficial ownership structures, map financial networks, validate evidence from multiple sources and generate investigative reports that meet regulatory standards.
Unlike conventional compliance software that primarily flags suspicious transactions, Tangos said its AI platform performs much of the investigative process itself, evaluating evidence, testing hypotheses and producing complete case files for human investigators to review and approve.
Financial crime generates an estimated $1.5 trillion in illicit proceeds annually, according to company figures. Banks and other financial institutions are struggling with growing volumes of compliance alerts, stricter regulatory requirements and a shortage of experienced investigators, forcing many organizations to prioritize only a portion of potentially suspicious cases.
"Our goal is to bring the speed, scale and consistency of autonomous AI to a process that has historically depended on highly manual work," Azoulay said in a statement.
The company said its leadership team includes former officials from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, former Israeli intelligence officials and AI specialists.
Tangos said its platform is already being used by major financial institutions and intelligence organizations for investigations involving sanctions, financial crime and national security, though it did not identify customers.
Yaniv Stern, co-founder and managing partner at Red Dot Capital Partners, said investigations remain one of the most resource-intensive functions for financial institutions despite years of investment in fraud detection and compliance systems.
He said autonomous AI has the potential to transform how complex financial investigations are conducted while maintaining the governance and transparency required by regulators.
The new funding will be used to expand the company's platform and accelerate its growth in the United States and other international markets.