Share this article
Cryptocurrency AML Specialist Notabene Raises $10M
Investors including crypto exchanges Luno and Bitso also participated in the Series A round.
By Ian Allison
Updated May 11, 2023, 5:46 p.m. Published Nov 8, 2021, 3:00 p.m.
Make us preferred on Google
Notabene, a provider of anti-money laundering (AML) services for cryptocurrency firms, has raised $10.2 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Jump Capital and F-Prime Capital. Peter Johnson, a partner at Jump Capital, will serve on Notabene’s board of directors.
Crypto exchanges Luno and Bitso, which are Notabene customers, also took part in the round alongside BlockFi, Gemini Frontier Fund, Illuminate Financial, CMT Digital, Fenbushi Capital and ComplyAdvantage CEO Charlie Delingpole. Existing investors Castle Island Ventures and Green Visor Capital also participated.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Crypto compliance has become a sub-sector within the blockchain industry, driven by the likes of global AML watchdog the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Notabene is one of a band of firms focused on helping cryptocurrency exchanges and trading desks become compliant with things like the “travel rule,” a customer-data sharing requirement bringing crypto in line with banks.
That said, Notabene CEO Pelle Braendgaard points out his company’s mission is not to solve travel rule compliance. It’s really about a bigger picture, he said, which is enabling trusted transactions between people and businesses.
“Compliance is the first part, because regulators want to know you’re not interacting with some North Korean general,” said Braendgaard in an interview. “But for crypto to take off we need to use it for everyday transactions. Like if I’m ordering something off Amazon, I want to know that it’s Amazon I paid. So, the travel rule can be seen as a catalyst to bring this layer to crypto.”
As regulatory organizations like the FATF try to encompass crypto’s avant-garde realm of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), service providers like Notabene – born out of the ConsenSys-backed identity startup uPort – were built with decentralized applications (dapps) in mind, said Braendgaard.
“How do we talk about identities in the context of a smart contract or a dapp or anything like that?” Braendgaard said. “Where the parties to a transaction may be intermediated through a smart contract, how do those parties know who they’re interacting with, and how can that be done in a privacy preserving way?”
More For You
KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
More For You
Coinbase CEO says Big banks now view crypto as an ‘existential’ threat to their business
Brian Armstrong returns from World Economic Forum with message: traditional finance is taking crypto seriously
What to know:
- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said a top executive at one of the world’s 10 largest banks told him crypto is now the bank’s “number one priority” and an “existential” issue.
- At Davos, Armstrong highlighted tokenization of assets and stablecoins as major themes, arguing they could broaden access to investments for billions while threatening to bypass traditional banks.
- He described the Trump administration as the most crypto-forward government globally, backing efforts like the CLARITY Act, and predicted that AI agents will increasingly use stablecoins for payments outside conventional banking rails.
Top Stories
