Sphinx Raises $7.1M to Build Every Financial Institution's Last Compliance Hire

Sphinx, the company building browser-native compliance agents for financial institutions, led by Alexandre Berkovic and Chrisjan Wust, has raised a $7.1 million seed round led by Cherry Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Rebel Fund, Deel Ventures, and Singularity Capital.

Unlike traditional RegTech platforms, Sphinx does not require teams to adopt a new system. Its AI agents operate directly within existing tools, case management systems, third-party portals, PDFs, email, and internal dashboards, performing the work of a compliance analyst.

Agents review alerts, conduct AML and KYB checks, gather supporting research, draft RFIs, and document their reasoning in a complete, regulator-ready audit trail. Teams typically go live in days, without integrations or system replacements.

“Compliance today is mostly human glue between systems that were never designed to work together,” said Alexandre Berkovic, Co-Founder and CEO. “Sphinx takes on that work directly so analysts can focus on the judgment calls, and institutions finally get a complete, defensible record of how every decision was made.”

Sphinx’s browser-native architecture enables it to operate globally from day one, adapting to diverse workflows and regulatory requirements across more than a dozen regions. Its customers include banks, public companies, and fast-growing fintechs using the platform to eliminate manual review work, reduce backlogs, and scale operations without adding headcount.

“Sphinx isn’t just software, it’s critical operational infrastructure that meets teams inside their systems, procedures, and daily workflows,” said Filip Dames, Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures. “Very few products can operate within that level of complexity, which is driving rapid adoption across banks and fintechs.”

In production, Sphinx agents have processed millions of alerts and hundreds of thousands of cases, clearing months-long backlogs in days. Customers report sharp reductions in manual reviews, faster onboarding, and materially lower exposure to compliance errors and fines.

Equals Money saw a 94% reduction in false positives while increasing true positives, and several institutions now operate internationally without expanding compliance headcount, cutting operational costs by up to 4x.

Sphinx targets the $200B+ spent annually on compliance teams and outsourced review providers performing work that legacy software was never designed to handle. Rather than adding another dashboard, it focuses on getting the work done.

Sphinx aims to replace the $200B+ spent on manual compliance work by executing the tasks itself, not adding another dashboard.