Investments led by Norwest Venture Partners and Arctos Sports Partners will support expansion into new verticals and further growth in core markets
January 25, 2023 (Vancouver, BC) — GeoComply Solutions Inc. (“GeoComply”), the market-leading geolocation security provider, announced today that it has secured minority investments by funds managed by Norwest Venture Partners (“Norwest”) and Arctos Sports Partners (“Arctos”). Both investment groups will support GeoComply’s continued growth in its core markets and help accelerate its expansion into Financial Services and Media Rights Management.
GeoComply’s platform is trusted by leading high-tech companies to fight fraud and ensure compliance through its Ground Truth Geolocation™ data platform – a proprietary system handling over one billion transactions a month across hundreds of millions of devices worldwide. With Ground Truth Geolocation data at its core, GeoComply’s technology offers a differentiated and comprehensive solution that solves the growing needs for compliance, fraud, risk management and digital identity. GeoComply is uniquely positioned at the intersection of the fintech, streaming and identity management verticals, representing a total addressable market of $80 billion and growing.
“In a time when society has serious questions about the security of the internet, our technology is focused on restoring digital trust. 18 months after bringing on Blackstone as our first institutional investor, we’re very excited to be working with Norwest and Arctos. With their added support we will take our Ground Truth Geolocation platform into broader technology markets, so these industries can also receive the level of reliability and credibility GeoComply has consistently delivered to our core regulated internet gaming and sports betting clients.” said Anna Sainsbury, Co-Founder and CEO, GeoComply. “Despite a challenging tech environment, GeoComply has continued to invest and expand our product and services. Every division of our company is driven by a shared passion to address the evolving challenges facing our communities. For example, our team is leveraging our technology to tackle the high profile compliance failures across the cryptocurrency landscape that have impacted millions of consumers worldwide. We have big plans for 2023 and beyond, and continue to hire and expand as we bring our products and services to more markets and verticals.”
Norwest is a global, multi-stage venture and growth equity investment firm. Norwest invests in profitable, market-leading companies that demonstrate exceptional growth potential. The firm manages more than $12.5 billion in capital and has funded more than 650 companies since inception.
“GeoComply reflects Norwest’s continued focus on investing in businesses that help companies ensure mission critical compliance with regulations, manage risk, and avoid costly penalties,” said Jon Kossow, Managing Partner at Norwest. “Anna and David have built an impressive, profitable business serving the gaming and sports betting market, and we look forward to partnering with them as GeoComply expands into financial services, crypto and other verticals.”
Arctos is a private investment platform dedicated to providing growth capital and liquidity solutions to industry-leading professional sports franchise owners in major North American leagues and premier global sports organizations as well as technology and services companies working within the sports ecosystem.
“A robust gaming environment depends on technology that prevents fraud, verifies identity and location, and ensures the safety and security of its users as well as adherence to all relevant laws and regulations. GeoComply is the leader in providing this essential technology,” said Chad Hutchinson, Partner at Arctos. “We are thrilled to partner with Anna and the team at GeoComply as they expand operations and bring their technology to new geographies and markets.”
Sainsbury continued: “We have natural alignment with the teams at Norwest and Arctos. We can pivot quickly to develop our business in markets they collectively serve, while managing the needs of our existing customers by delivering new products and services.”
About GeoComply
Founded in 2011, GeoComply provides fraud prevention and cybersecurity solutions that detect location fraud and help verify a user’s true digital identity. Trusted by leading brands and regulators for the past 10 years, the company’s fraud and compliance solutions are approved by dozens of regulators, are installed on over 400 million devices and analyze over 10 billion transactions a year.
GeoComply’s solutions incorporate location, device, and identity intelligence and advanced machine learning to detect and flag fraudulent activity. By integrating GeoComply’s solutions into their processes and risk engines, organizations can identify fraud earlier in a user’s engagement, better establish their true digital identity and empower digital trust.
GeoComply’s award-winning products are based on technologies developed for the highly regulated and complex US online gaming and sports betting market. Beyond iGaming, GeoComply provides geolocation fraud detection solutions for streaming video broadcasters and the online banking, payments and cryptocurrency industries, building an impressive list of customers, including Akamai, Amazon Prime Video, BBC, BetMGM, DraftKings, FanDuel, and Sightline. For more information visit: www.geocomply.com. Follow GeoComply on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/geocomply and Twitter: https://twitter.com/geocomply.
About GeoComply’s Ground Truth Geolocation Data Platform
- GeoComply’s Ground Truth Geolocation data platform is a highly accurate and reliable compliance and anti-fraud solution. It relies on location data collected from the user’s device, such as GPS, WiFi triangulation, and GSM Cell Tower Triangulation. This data is then subject to more than 200 different checks to ensure that it is not being spoofed.
- The key benefit of GeoComply’s Ground Truth Geolocation data is its accuracy and reliability. This makes it an ideal solution for government regulators, financial institutions, and crypto exchanges that require compliance-grade geolocation data. Additionally, the 200+ checks that are performed on the data ensures that any potential fraud is detected, making it a powerful anti-fraud solution.
- According to OFAC regulations, financial institutions are required to implement effective compliance programs to detect and prevent transactions involving sanctioned individuals or entities. Using unreliable IP geolocation data, which can be easily spoofed, typically does not meet this requirement. Instead, financial institutions can use highly accurate, security scanned, and reliable geolocation data, such as GeoComply’s Ground Truth Geolocation data, to help ensure compliance with OFAC regulations.
- For financial institutions and other organizations subject to OFAC and other regulations, using GeoComply’s Ground Truth Geolocation data is a safer and more reliable approach for compliance and anti-fraud purposes, rather than risking their reputation with unreliable IP geolocation data.
About Norwest
Norwest is a leading venture and growth equity investment firm managing more than $12.5 billion in capital. Since its inception, Norwest has invested in more than 650 companies and currently partners with more than 200 companies in its venture and growth equity portfolio. The firm invests in early- to late-stage businesses across a wide range of sectors with a focus on consumer, enterprise, and healthcare. The Norwest team offers a deep network of connections, operating experience, and a wide range of impactful services to help CEOs and founders scale their businesses. Norwest has offices in Palo Alto and San Francisco, with subsidiaries in India and Israel. For more information, please visit www.nvp.com. Follow Norwest on Twitter @NorwestVP.
About Arctos
Arctos works with innovative and visionary ownership groups and leagues across North American professional sports and European soccer. Arctos has a team of nearly 40 investment and operational professionals with offices in Dallas and New York. In addition to liquidity solutions and growth capital, Arctos’ portfolio franchises are able to leverage the deep industry knowledge and operational expertise of the firm’s operating advisors to help drive additional value. Arctos is the first firm to be approved by and execute deals across NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS, and to date, has invested in more than 20 sports franchises and adjacent businesses.
© 2023 GeoComply Solutions Inc. GEOCOMPLY and the GeoComply logo are trademarks of GeoComply Solutions Inc. Other names or logos mentioned herein may be the trademarks of GeoComply or their respective owners. The absence of the symbols ™ and ® in proximity to each trademark, or at all, herein is not a disclaimer of ownership of the related trademark. All rights reserved.
Media Contacts
GeoComply
William Parry
william.parry@geocomply.com
Arctos Partners
Michael Melamed
media@arctospartners.com
Norwest
Kate Dishaw
kdishaw@nvp.com
