Author: David Teten

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The institutional AI implementation layer is now a two-vendor market, and the largest banks are funding both sides instead of picking one.

On May 11, OpenAI launched the OpenAI Deployment Company (“DeployCo”), a majority-owned Delaware LLC priced at $10B pre-money, with $4B+ at an initial close from 19 investors. TPG lead; co-leads: Advent International, Bain Capital, Brookfield Asset Management. Founding partners: Goldman Sachs, SoftBank Corp., Warburg Pincus, WCAS, B Capital, BBVA, Emergence Capital, Goanna Capital. Bain & Company, Capgemini, and McKinsey joined as consulting partners. OpenAI keeps majority ownership and super-voting control. The same week, OpenAI acquired Tomoro (price undisclosed), an applied-AI consultancy with roughly 150 Forward Deployed Engineers and clients including Tesco, Virgin Atlantic, and Supercell. OpenAI CRO Denise Dresser: “The challenge now is helping companies integrate these systems into the infrastructure and workflows that power their businesses.”

This structure mirrors the Anthropic JV we covered last week. Goldman Sachs is in both. One week after backing Anthropic’s $1.5B venture with Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman, Goldman joined DeployCo. The rest of the alignment is sharper: TPG, Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield sit with OpenAI. Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Apollo, and General Atlantic sit with Anthropic. Each lab now has a private equity bench, an implementation entity it controls, and a roster of consultancies writing checks.

On the same day, Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE: BR) announced its AI agents are live in production across capital markets and wealth management workflows. According to Broadridge, new clients can see up to 30% cost reduction at deployment; 40+ clients are live since 2024.

Notable investment tech raises

Greenboard raised $15.5M Series A led by Base10 Partners, with Y Combinator, General Catalyst (via its Wayfinder Ventures acquisition), Commerce Ventures, Transpose Platform, Liquid2 Ventures, and Kulveer Taggar participating. Total funding: $20M. The AI-native securities compliance platform serves 500+ financial institutions with 99%+ retention. Named customers include Root Financial (saving roughly 24 hours per week on marketing reviews) and JMG Financial (60% faster compliance onboarding, three legacy systems consolidated). Alongside the round, the company launched GreenboardGo, a conversational AI layer over a firm’s books, records, policies, and workflows.

Elliptic raised $120M Series D led by One Peak, with Nasdaq Ventures, Deutsche Bank, and the British Business Bank participating. The round valued the crypto compliance and on-chain analytics provider at $670M. Elliptic screens 1B+ transactions per week across 65+ blockchains for 700+ customers in 30 countries: banks, FinTechs, government agencies, and crypto firms. Founded 2013, on a proprietary blockchain-labeling dataset built over a decade.

Bayesline filed a fresh SEC Form D this week (amount undisclosed), following a $2M seed in late 2024 from Y Combinator, Blockchain Founders Capital, 468 Capital, and MultiModal Ventures. The NYC company sells fast, customizable equity risk models for investment managers. Portfolio teams build their own factor models, integrate proprietary data, and run analytics in seconds. Co-founder Misha van Beek headed BlackRock Aladdin’s portfolio risk research across asset classes worth tens of trillions in client AUM. Co-founder Sebastian Janisch built equity risk models in BlackRock’s Financial Modeling Group, then ran quant product at Bloomberg. The target: funds too small to build their own Aladdin, too serious for off-the-shelf factor data.

On the radar

J.P. Morgan Asset Management launched its second tokenized money market fund this week: JLTXX (OnChain Liquidity-Token Money Market Fund), live on public Ethereum. JLTXX is a U.S. registered government MMF built as a reserve asset stablecoin issuers can hold under the new GENIUS Act. JPM AM seeded it with $100M, Anchorage Digital participating. This is the second tokenized MMF JPM has shipped on Ethereum in five months, after MONY. Roughly $30B in traditional assets are now tokenized on public blockchains, with on-chain product AUM nearly tripling since early 2024.

The advisor channel got smarter and more crowded in the same week. Vestmark Pulse launched as an AI tool that continuously monitors client portfolios across positions, SEC filings, market news, and CRM data, then surfaces single-click rebalancing, trade execution, and client outreach. Vestmark powers portfolio management for $2T+ in client assets; Pulse includes a Compliance Pre-Flight feature that screens every trade against investment policy statements, restrictions, and regulatory limits before execution. Same week, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Personal Finance for U.S. Pro subscribers, connecting via Plaid to 12,000+ institutions including Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, Chase, and American Express. SoFi acquired PrimaryBid, folding the UK fintech’s retail capital-markets access technology (300+ offerings, $1.5B+ in transaction value) into U.S. expansion. AI is augmenting advisors at the high end and substituting for them at the low end, while retail access to capital markets keeps consolidating.

Klent launched this week as a one-click kill switch between an AI agent and production systems, so a misfiring agent cannot wipe a database or take services down. On the corporate side, Prism Layer AI filed a $1M pre-seed SEC Form D this week (Fenway Summer led, Plural Ventures participating) for governed AI that handles enterprise risk assessments.

The same architecture, where specialized agents do the work and humans approve the outputs, has now surfaced in investment banking (Rogo), legal diligence (Patlytics), KYC/KYB (Spektr), corporate finance (Safebooks), securities compliance (Greenboard), and enterprise risk (Prism Layer) in six weeks.

The takeaway for investors

For emerging managers, your vendor stack in 18 months likely sits on top of OpenAI or Anthropic infrastructure whether you pick or not; for allocators, a new GP diligence question is which side they are on; for advisors, the channel is being augmented at the top and bypassed at the bottom.

Data sourced from SEC Form D filings, developer activity, and alternative signal tracking by Rob Saunders at WhoFiled. Reporting on the OpenAI Deployment Company, ChatGPT Personal Finance, Anthropic JV, Greenboard, Elliptic, Broadridge, Vestmark, SoFi/PrimaryBid, and JPMorgan JLTXX draws on coverage from OpenAI, Axios, Fortune, BusinessWire, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, PR Newswire, FinTech Futures, and J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Curated by Rob Saunders, WhoFiled. 

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The big theme: The institutional AI plumbing for finance has a default vendor, and Anthropic locked it in over two days.

On May 4, Anthropic, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman announced a $1.5 billion joint venture, with Apollo and General Atlantic participating, to deploy engineers and Claude AI directly inside companies owned by the participating sponsors. The next day, May 5, at an invite-only Wall Street briefing attended by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4.7, its most capable model for financial work, alongside a pre-built suite of AI agents for the world’s largest banks, full Microsoft 365 integration, and a Moody’s data partnership. Marc Nachmann, Goldman’s global head of asset and wealth management, framed the JV’s logic plainly: “Having the model alone doesn’t change your workflows or how you operate.” The implementation layer is the bottleneck, not the model.

Goldman alone oversees approximately $3.5 trillion in assets under supervision; Blackstone manages another $1.3 trillion as the world’s largest alternative asset manager. The participating sponsors are not running a thesis check on AI. They are funding the implementation layer for it. Leading names in private equity, investment banking, and alternatives distribution (iCapital) all picked the same model in the same week.

Notable investment tech raises

Templum raised $13.5 million in a Series A, per a Form D filing. The New York-based company is the infrastructure layer for private markets, providing white-label and API-deployable broker-dealer support, marketplace technology, and full investment lifecycle workflow tooling. Customers include SoFi, Wedbush’s Alpha One Global Family Office, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Voya Investment Management, and Pomona Capital. In March, Templum and SoFi opened a 25-day window letting accredited SoFi members allocate to Perplexity AI, OpenAI, and Colossal Biosciences. Last week we named the retail private markets access wave as a pattern to watch.

Performativ raised $14 million in a Series A led by Deutsche Börse Group, with Rabo Investments (Rabobank), former McKinsey global banking sector co-leader Jacob Dahl, and existing investors FinTech Collective and EIFO (Denmark’s sovereign wealth fund) participating. The Copenhagen-based company runs a cloud-native operating system that consolidates portfolio management, attribution, risk, compliance, multi-custodian data aggregation, and trading into one platform with embedded AI agents.

Marloo raised $10 million in a seed round led by Blackbird Ventures, with Icehouse Ventures participating. The London-based company builds an AI partner for financial advisers that handles meeting notes, advice documents, compliance workflows, and a persistent client knowledge base, pushing past the AI-notetaker category toward an operating system for advisory firms. 650 paying advisory firms across six countries in under a year, 40% month-over-month revenue growth, near-zero churn. Blackbird now holds approximately 34% after leading both rounds.

On the radar

Caruso closed a $6.5 million Series A at a $55 million valuation led by Icehouse Ventures and GD1 for its AI-native fund administration platform for private markets, with private credit fund Balmain re-upping. Assets under administration jumped 10x to $55 billion in 12 months, with revenue up 400%. Same pitch as K1x’s $175 million two weeks ago: fund admin still runs on spreadsheets and email, and the firms automating it are scaling fast.

Safebooks AI launched a set of agents that automate reconciliation, validation, policy enforcement, workpapers, and close workflows. The buyer is corporate finance rather than the GP, but the architecture is identical to what Rogo runs at the top of the market and what Patlytics runs in legal diligence. When the same architecture surfaces in fund admin, corporate close, portfolio monitoring, and patent diligence within four weeks, it is a category signal, not a coincidence.

The takeaway for investors

Two weeks ago we named the through-line uniting the largest investment-tech raises: specialized AI agents executing professional-grade work autonomously, with humans reviewing outputs. This week is further validation.

Data sourced from SEC Form D filings, developer activity, and alternative signal tracking by Rob Saunders at WhoFiled. Reporting on Anthropic’s May 4 joint venture and May 5 banking briefing draws on coverage from CNBC and Fortune.

(Thanks to Rob Saunders, CEO, WhoFiled for curation.)

The week’s big theme: AI agents are no longer augmenting deal teams. They’re replacing workflow steps entirely.

Rogo raised $160M in a Series D led by Kleiner Perkins, with Sequoia, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, and J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners participating. Total funding now exceeds $300M. The company’s AI agent, Felix, is used by more than 35,000 financial professionals at 250+ institutions including Rothschild & Co, Jefferies, Lazard, Moelis, and Nomura. Felix doesn’t just answer questions. It executes multi-step financial processes autonomously: deal screening, CIM generation, buyer outreach, and data room diligence. CEO Gabriel Stengel put it directly: “The institutions at the forefront are rapidly moving beyond automating tasks to becoming AI-native firms, with agentic systems that work across the firm and get smarter with every deal.”

The investor roster tells you where the market thinks this is going. When Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, and JP Morgan Growth Equity all back the same investment banking AI platform, they’re not betting on a tool. They’re betting on an operating system. Rogo also acquired two companies recently: Plux AI (UK-based financial market intelligence) and Offset (AI agent execution).

Notable investment tech raises

Rogo raised $160M Series D (Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners). See above.

Patlytics raised $40.5M in a Series B led by SignalFire, with N47, Relativity, and Myriad Venture Partners participating. AI-native patent workflow platform that automates claim mapping, infringement analysis, and opportunity identification. Used by 40%+ of Am Law 100 firms including Quinn Emanuel, Latham & Watkins, and Foley & Lardner, plus corporate IP teams at Rivian, Google, and Canon. Strategic investment from Relativity and the involvement of former Kirkland & Ellis chairman Jeff Hammes signal category validation.

Spektr raised $20M in a Series A led by NEA, with Northzone, Seedcamp, and PSV Tech. The Copenhagen-based company builds AI compliance infrastructure for banks and fintechs, deploying specialized agents that automate KYC and KYB workflows. Clients include Pleo, Santander Leasing, Mercuryo, and Monta. Every fund has a compliance team doing manual document review, ownership mapping, and risk assessments. Spektr is automating the analysts, not just the workflow.

On the radar

AngelList launched USVC on April 22, a registered venture capital fund that lets any U.S. investor, accredited or not, invest in private companies starting at $500. Naval Ravikant chairs the investment committee. The initial portfolio holds stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Sierra, Vercel, Crusoe, and Legora. The same week, Robinhood Ventures Fund I purchased $75 million in OpenAI common stock through a publicly traded vehicle, and Destiny Tech100 (Nasdaq: DXYZ) continued raising capital through its publicly listed portfolio of 100 venture-backed companies. Three different vehicles for retail private market access, all active in the same two-week window.

Finfuego raised $495K for Finley, an AI agent that automates cash forecasting, treasury optimization, and capital access. Tiny raise, but the product concept matters. If AI agents can reliably handle treasury and cash management, the same architecture applies to fund-level cash management and LP capital calls.

The takeaway for your tech stack

The three largest investment tech raises this period, Rogo ($160M), Patlytics ($40.5M), and Spektr ($20M), share the same architecture: specialized AI agents that execute professional-grade work autonomously, with humans reviewing outputs rather than producing them. Rogo’s agents screen deals and draft CIMs. Patlytics’ agents map patent claims. Spektr’s agents research companies and generate risk assessments.

The next generation of investment tech doesn’t assist professionals. It performs the work and asks professionals to approve it. For firms still evaluating AI adoption, the window for “wait and see” is closing. Your competitors at Rothschild and Lazard aren’t waiting.

Scope: All material fundraising activity, product launches, and infrastructure developments in the investment tech space.

Coverage definition: U.S. and global investment tech transactions and product activity. We define investment tech as tools, platforms, and infrastructure whose primary buyer is a fund manager, allocator, or financial advisor. This includes deal sourcing and modeling, portfolio analytics, fund administration, LP reporting, compliance and reg-tech, cap table management, alternative data for diligence, and AI tools purpose-built for the investment workflow. Consumer fintech, retail banking, and general SaaS are excluded.

Data sourced from SEC Form D filings, developer activity, and alternative signal tracking by Rob Saunders at WhoFiled.

We’re launching an experiment. We’ve partnered with Rob Saunders, CEO, WhoFiled, to share a weekly update on all material fundraising activity, product launches, and infrastructure developments in the investment tech space. Please share your feedback!

Our coverage definition: U.S. and global investment tech transactions and product activity. We define investment tech as tools, platforms, and infrastructure whose primary buyer is a fund manager, allocator, or financial advisor. This includes deal sourcing and modeling, portfolio analytics, fund administration, LP reporting, compliance and reg-tech, cap table management, alternative data for diligence, and AI tools purpose-built for the investment workflow. Consumer fintech, retail banking, and general SaaS are excluded.

The big theme: private market back-office infrastructure is getting its largest checks yet.

K1x, an AI-native tax data platform for private markets, raised $175M led by Sumeru Equity Partners, with Edison Partners participating for the third time since 2022. Sumeru takes majority ownership. The company automates the extraction, aggregation, and standardization of K-1, K-3, and 1099 data. That sounds mundane until you realize K1x already serves 44 of the 100 largest U.S. institutional investors, 20 of the top 25 accounting firms, and 45 of the largest university endowments. The $27 billion annual burden of private market tax reporting is, as CEO John LaMancuso put it, “no longer seasonal. It’s structural.” The market remains over 90% unserved.

This is the second consecutive week where the largest investment tech raise went to back-office infrastructure rather than front-office tooling. Last week it was GeoWealth ($42.5M from Goldman Sachs for portfolio management and RIA operations). This week it’s K1x ($175M for tax compliance automation). The pattern is clear: the operational layer that most funds still run on spreadsheets and email is where the real money is moving.

Notable investment tech raises

On the radar

Beneficient (Nasdaq: BENF) raised $8.75M through a GP Primary Capital transaction, continuing to build out its AltAccess platform for alternative asset liquidity. The public company provides exit opportunities and primary capital solutions to GPs and mid-to-high net worth holders of alternative assets. It operates under a Kansas TEFFI charter (Technology-Enabled Fiduciary Financial Institution), one of the first of its kind. Worth watching as the secondary market for alternative assets matures.

Levelup Intelligence raised $225K for a centralized dashboard that integrates portfolio company financial data from multiple accounting platforms. Early stage, but the problem (scattered financial data across portfolio companies) is universal in PE and VC operations.

Malcolm (aimalcolm.com) also filed this week, building a platform that automates data extraction, reporting, and collaboration for PE, VC, and private credit funds. Another early-stage entrant targeting the same pain point as K1x and Levelup from a different angle. When three companies file in the same week solving variations of the same problem (fund data is fragmented, manual, and hard to report on), the market is telling you something.

The takeaway for your tech stack

K1x’s CEO framed it: “Where tax compliance in public markets runs like a Swiss watch, private markets still run on manual processes, unstructured documents, and fragmented systems that cannot scale.” That’s not just true for tax. It’s true for portfolio reporting, LP communications, fund admin, and compliance. The firms raising the largest rounds right now are all attacking the same gap: the distance between how public market operations work and how private market operations actually run day to day. If your fund’s back office still depends on spreadsheets and email threads, the vendors building the replacement are getting funded at scale. The window to choose is open. It won’t stay that way.

Data sourced from SEC Form D filings, developer activity, and alternative signal tracking by Rob Saunders at WhoFiled, who is solely responsible for its accuracy.