London, UK - World-Check, the leading provider of structured intelligence on heightened risk individuals and entities, announced today that it has received a significant equity investment from Spectrum Equity Investors and HarbourVest Partners. The investment will position the company for its next stage of growth, further improve its service to customers, and help it execute on its global expansion strategy. Following the transaction, Chris Mitchell and Adam Margolin from Spectrum, and Alex Rogers from HarbourVest, will join the World-Check board of directors. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

David Leppan, founder and CEO of World-Check said, “We are extremely pleased to have Spectrum make this strategic investment in the company. While World-Check has grown significantly since its founding six years ago, we believe we are still in the early stages of the company’s growth opportunity. With their domain expertise and financial resources, Spectrum represents the ideal partner to help World-Check further capitalize on the numerous growth prospects facing the company. We are also pleased to have HarbourVest as investors given their strong international presence and extensive resources.”

“World-Check is a perfect fit for Spectrum, given our focus on investments in profitable, growing providers of information services,” said Chris Mitchell, managing director of Spectrum Equity Investors. “The Company has emerged as the clear market leader and industry standard for Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) intelligence, and its roster of marquee clients consistently attests to the value of the product in managing financial and reputational risk, as well as in complying with regulatory requirements. We look forward to working with David and the management team to build a world class company.”

World-Check is relied upon by more than 2000 institutions, including 45 of the world’s 50 largest financial institutions and hundreds of government agencies and regulators, with its global database of heightened-risk individuals and businesses. World-Check is utilized as an integral part of its clients’ customer due diligence efforts both at the point of new account origination as well as for ongoing screens of existing customer lists.

“The World-Check brand is synonymous with quality, and the product is deeply embedded in many of its customers’ core processes. Given the company’s global reach, meticulous research, and depth of content, World-Check has become an indispensable tool for uncovering and preventing fraud,” said Alex Rogers, Principal of HarbourVest.

“World-Check’s KYC approach is also becoming increasingly important to customer segments beyond the banking industry – from non-bank financial institutions such as insurance providers, broker-dealers, and asset managers, to newer verticals such as telecommunications, gaming, payments, and online media,” said Adam Margolin, vice president of Spectrum Equity Investors. “As the company’s financial partner, we are eager to help the company accommodate such demand, and are thrilled to include World-Check among our portfolio of information services companies.”

Portico Capital Securities served as the exclusive financial advisor to World-Check on the transaction. Latham & Watkins served as legal advisor to Spectrum Equity Investors. Senior debt financing was provided by Goldman Sachs.