ELLIPTIC

Elliptic was founded in London in 2013 by four academics and engineers — James Smith, Tom Robinson, Adam Joyce, and Gareth Thomas — who came out of the University of Oxford environment. They understood early that blockchain transactions were public but unreadable to most institutions.

Banks needed to know whether incoming crypto transactions were connected to known criminal activity. Crypto exchanges needed AML screening tools to satisfy regulators.

Elliptic built the compliance tooling for both. They were acquired by customers quickly, including some of the earliest regulated crypto businesses in the UK and Europe.

The company built out its VASP (Virtual Asset Service Provider) screening database and expanded to cover dozens of blockchains.

SaaS compliance software sold primarily to banks, financial institutions, and crypto businesses. The core product screens crypto transactions and wallet addresses against Elliptic's database of known illicit actors, sanctioned entities, and high-risk counterparties.

Customers use it to satisfy AML, KYC, and CFT obligations under financial regulations in the UK, EU, and internationally. Elliptic also sells forensic investigation tools to law enforcement and regulators.

Revenue is subscription-based with pricing tied to transaction volume and blockchain coverage.

Elliptic Investigator is the forensic investigation tool for law enforcement and compliance teams — it maps blockchain transaction flows and identifies wallet clusters linked to known illicit entities. Elliptic Discovery is the VASP screening product that lets businesses check whether a counterparty crypto wallet or exchange is high-risk before transacting.

Elliptic Lens is a real-time transaction monitoring product for screening payments against risk databases. Elliptic also maintains one of the most comprehensive blockchain-to-entity mapping databases in the industry, covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, and dozens of other chains.

Elliptic has leaned into the European regulatory wave. The EU's MiCA regulation and the UK's expanding crypto oversight have been tailwinds — every regulated crypto business in Europe needs compliant AML infrastructure, and Elliptic has positioned as the home-market specialist.

They have also expanded into DeFi compliance and NFT transaction screening, two areas where regulatory pressure is increasing. Partnerships with financial institutions — not just crypto companies — are a key part of the growth plan, as banks entering the crypto custody business need blockchain analytics from a trusted provider.

Chainalysis. The US competitor is better funded, better known to US law enforcement, and has a larger engineering team.

In any government RFP for blockchain investigation tools in North America, Chainalysis is the default. Elliptic has to win on geography (European regulatory expertise), product (coverage of newer and more obscure chains), and relationship (personalized service for mid-sized institutions).

A second challenge is the crypto market itself — compliance budgets shrink when crypto prices fall and exchange volumes drop. A third is that TRM Labs, another well-funded US competitor, is also pushing into the European market.

SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the $60 million Series C in 2021. Earlier investors include AlbionVC, Octopus Ventures, Paladin Capital Group, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, and SBI Group.

The investor mix reflects Elliptic's positioning at the intersection of financial regulation and blockchain technology.