Formalize Raises €30 Million Series B to Expand Its Compliance Automation Platform Across Europe

Formalize, a Copenhagen-based compliance software company, has raised €30 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total capital raised to approximately €50 million since its inception. The financing was co-led by Acton Capital and BlackFin Capital Partners (via its venture arm BlackFin Tech), with participation from West Hill Capital and CIBC Innovation Banking.

Founded in 2021, the company originally focused on whistle-blowing software (formerly known as “Whistleblower Software”) but has since pivoted into a full-fledged governance, risk and compliance (GRC) operations platform. It now offers automation across multiple regulatory frameworks including GDPR, NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001 and SOC 2, and serves over 8,000 customers across Europe and beyond.

With this latest funding, Formalize intends to accelerate its European expansion, particularly into major markets such as the DACH region and France, by opening new offices and building out local teams to support market-specific compliance demands. The round underscores the investor community’s conviction in demand for compliance automation tools in the face of escalating regulatory complexity.

The company’s earlier Series A round in March 2024 raised €15 million and was led by BlackFin Tech. At that time, Formalize had around 90 employees with offices in Aarhus, Copenhagen and Madrid; the new capital will enable it to nearly double its workforce and open an office in Milan. That round was positioned around expanding the company’s product footprint beyond whistle-blowing to full compliance lifecycle management.

In commenting on the Series B raise, Formalize’s CEO and co-founder Jakob Lilholm described compliance not as an optional business function but as a foundational requirement. He emphasised that their mission is to build a future where automation and AI make GRC “effortless” for European small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) while preserving local expertise and trust. The company now supports more than 12 languages and operates in more than 80 countries, making it a truly pan-European solution to what has traditionally been a fragmented regulatory landscape.

The round’s lead investors bring complementary strengths: Acton Capital has a long track record of scaling European B2B software businesses, while BlackFin Capital specialises in financial services, compliance and regulatory technology investments across Europe. Their joint backing of Formalize sends a strong signal to the market that regulatory-tech (RegTech) is a growth category.

Formalize’s technology platform brings together compliance workflows, incident tracking, audit trails, supplier risk management and regulatory-change monitoring into a unified dashboard. The goal is to remove friction from regulatory obligations and enable companies to adapt more quickly to evolving standards. The challenge is significant: across Europe, regulators are increasing demands on organisations across sectors — from critical infrastructure to financial services — to be audit-ready for frameworks such as DORA and NIS2. Formalize’s offering appeals to those pressures and promises to transform compliance from a cost centre into a competitive advantage.

The funding will also be directed toward further product development — deepening automation, building more AI-driven insights, and enhancing user-experience. On the geography side, Formalize will establish new offices and grow teams in local jurisdictions where language, regulation and culture matter. This localisation strategy is central given how regulation varies across European countries.

By raising €30 million at Series B and having already raised €15 million at Series A, Formalize is now well-capitalised to scale rapidly across Europe. Its growth comes at a moment when compliance demands are undergoing acceleration and fragmentation — making tools like Formalize’s increasingly essential for organisations that aim to stay ahead. With this infusion of capital, the company is positioned to deepen its leadership in one of the fastest evolving corners of enterprise software.

If Formalize executes on its expansion, localization and product-development ambitions, it could emerge as a standard platform for compliance operations across Europe’s mid-market, combining the domain expertise of traditional compliance consultancies with the scalability of modern software.