Franklin Templeton & Microsoft Partner to Build Financial AI Platform

Hi NoRamp Community,

Daily News:

1) Coinbase Wallet Teaming Up With Jupiter to Power Solana Trading

2) DOJ Charges Roger Ver With Tax Fraud

3) Franklin Templeton & Microsoft Partner to Build Financial AI Platform

4) Apptega’s Fresh $15M Funding Set to Boost Compliance & Security

5) SafeBase Raises $33M to Accelerate Friction-Free Security Reviews

Coinbase Wallet Teaming Up With Jupiter to Power Solana Trading:

• Coinbase has integrated with the Jupiter decentralized exchange, allowing its wallet users to access a broad range of new Solana tokens, potentially up to 80,000, as Solana continues to be a prolific network for issuing new assets, including meme tokens.

• This integration means users must manually input many niche Solana tokens and exercise caution, as some of these tokens carry risks of low value, lack of liquidity, or even potential scams. The Coinbase wallet aims to mitigate these risks by providing users with chart information and slippage estimates.

• Jupiter DEX, highly regarded within the Solana ecosystem, supports this expansion with up to 20 liquidity pools for token swaps, ensuring all transactions are recorded on-chain. Before the Coinbase integration, Jupiter Aggregator already attracted over 10,000 daily active users and continues to grow, with its native JUP token achieving a market cap of $1.35 billion.

DOJ Charges Roger Ver With Tax Fraud:

• Bitcoin investor Roger Ver has been charged with tax fraud by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), which alleges that he evaded $50 million in taxes and is seeking his extradition from Spain where he was arrested.

• Ver, who became a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis in 2014, reportedly failed to pay the required "exit tax" on capital gains from approximately 131,000 bitcoins owned by him and his two US companies, MemoryDealers.com and Agilestar.com.

• The DOJ claims that Ver's actions resulted in at least a $48 million loss to the IRS and involved providing false information to a law firm, leading to the filing of tax returns that substantially undervalued his assets and omitted personal bitcoin holdings.

  

  Source: Fintech Futures

Franklin Templeton & Microsoft Partner to Build Financial AI Platform:

• Franklin Templeton, an investment management firm managing over $1.6 trillion in assets, is partnering with Microsoft to develop an "advanced financial AI platform" utilizing Microsoft Azure AI services, aimed at enhancing productivity and offering personalized support to clients.

• The collaboration will leverage Azure's AI capabilities, including OpenAI's GPT-4 large language model, AI Search, and AI Document Intelligence functions, to streamline and enrich Franklin Templeton’s sales and marketing processes with AI-driven data consolidation and analysis.

• This initiative is part of Franklin Templeton's broader strategy to integrate AI into financial services, enhancing its business intelligence through a multi-layer intelligence approach as outlined by Deep Srivastav, head of AI at the firm. This move also aligns with Microsoft's recent activities, such as collaborating with First Abu Dhabi Bank to build its AI Innovation Hub.

Apptega’s Fresh $15M Funding Set to Boost Compliance & Security:

• Apptega, a company specializing in lifecycle compliance solutions for managed service providers (MSPs), has raised $15 million in a mix of growth equity and third-party debt from Mainsail Partners to enhance its technology for continuous compliance and IT security automation.

• The new funding will be utilized for various strategic initiatives, including intensifying Apptega’s research and development in artificial intelligence to improve security and compliance services for MSPs, making these processes more efficient and cost-effective.

• With an aim to increase annual recurring revenue through channel partners, enhance customer retention, and improve gross margins for MSPs, Apptega plans to expand its operational capabilities and has set ambitious revenue growth targets of 30 percent in 2024 and a doubling by 2025. The company has been recognized as a leader in the Security Compliance Software category by G2 for 12 consecutive quarters.

SafeBase Raises $33M to Accelerate Friction-Free Security Reviews:

• SafeBase, a leading Trust Center Platform facilitating friction-free security reviews, has secured $33 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to over $50 million. The round was led by Touring Capital and included strategic investments from Zoom Ventures, along with contributions from existing investors like NEA, Y Combinator, Comcast Ventures, Cerca Partners, and notable cybersecurity executives.

• The SafeBase Trust Center Platform is designed to streamline and automate the security review process, making it transparent and efficient. It is used by prominent companies like LinkedIn, Datadog, and GitLab to enhance trust management and maintain customer trust by providing centralized access to sensitive documents and security data.

• With this new funding, SafeBase plans to expand its platform across the trust ecosystem and innovate further in third-party risk assessments, aiming to transform traditional security review processes which often act as roadblocks by hindering transparency and delaying sales cycles. The investment will support SafeBase's rapid growth trajectory, having achieved significant revenue growth and serving over 700 customers with high retention rates in 2023.

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