Steward, an AI-driven compliance platform managing $100B, raises $5M

Steward, an AI-first AML platform purpose-built for complex investor onboarding and ongoing monitoring, has raised $5 million to advance automation in compliance operations. The round was led by Motive Partners, with participation from Outward VC, Cooley, and a group of founders and operators. The oversubscribed round also included angel investors such as Shai Wininger, Mark Ransford, Tom Keiser, Remy Astié, Ulric Musset, Mushegh Tovmasyan, and Keith Grose.

As investor structures become more sophisticated, onboarding has grown increasingly complex. Compliance processes often break down across layered ownership chains, leading to manual reviews, fragmented communication, and delays across the financial industry.

Steward addresses this by automating AML and KYC workflows for complex investor profiles. Its platform integrates document collection, screening, risk assessment, and ongoing reviews into a single system, using AI to interpret multi-layered and cross-border ownership structures. It also enables secure, shareable Investor Profiles, allowing firms to exchange compliance data more efficiently.

Founded by Arik Oslerne (CEO), former COO of Vauban, and Moshe Lieberman (CTO), an early employee at Lemonade and Fiverr, Steward draws on deep experience in financial infrastructure and software-driven transformation to address longstanding inefficiencies in investor onboarding.

Commenting on the challenges in compliance, Arik Oslerne said it has long scaled in a linear way:

Firms can’t keep up with growing workloads using existing resources, leading to repeated remediation cycles and increasing regulatory pressure. AI offers a path to address these challenges, which is what Steward is designed to do.

The company reports that its system enables same-day onboarding in 80 per cent of cases, regardless of investor complexity. Its clients include Connect Ventures, Unruly Capital, IAB Group, as well as Motive Partners and Outward VC, alongside several Tier 1 institutional allocators.

Dual-headquartered in New York and London, Steward plans to use the new funding to expand its product capabilities and scale its team.