€ 30 million Series B for RegTech Formalize — expansion into Germany

Munich — Danish RegTech has closed a €30 million Series B finan­cing. The round is co-led by Acton Capi­tal and Black­Fin Tech, with parti­ci­pa­tion from West Hill Capi­tal and CIBC Inno­va­tion Banking. The aim is to massi­vely expand its presence in Germany, in parti­cu­lar the Munich office, which is expec­ted to grow to 30 employees by the end of 2026. Forma­lize offers a plat­form that covers DORA and NIS2 in one inte­gra­ted system. 

DORA is running, NIS2 is coming — Germany is under pressure

The regu­la­tory requi­re­ments for cyber­se­cu­rity are incre­asing rapidly: since Janu­ary 2025, around 3,600 finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons have had to imple­ment the EU’s DORA regu­la­tion. At the same time, the upco­ming NIS2 direc­tive will affect around 29,000 compa­nies, mainly from the SME sector. 

“When regu­la­tory requi­re­ments meet a massive shortage of skil­led workers, auto­ma­tion goes from being an option to a neces­sity. That’s why the German market is now an abso­lute prio­rity for us,” says Jakob Lilholm, CEO of Forma­lize.

Germany has missed the EU imple­men­ta­tion dead­line and infrin­ge­ment procee­dings are alre­ady under­way. Accor­ding to esti­ma­tes, the imple­men­ta­tion costs in the first year amount to 4.5 billion euros, plus possi­ble fines of up to 10 million euros. 

There is also a massive shortage of skil­led workers. Accor­ding to studies, there is a shortage of around 120,000 cyber­se­cu­rity experts in Germany. A gap that will be very diffi­cult to close in the short term. 

Auto­ma­ted compli­ance instead of a shortage of specialists

Forma­lize offers a plat­form that covers DORA and NIS2 in one inte­gra­ted system. This is an advan­tage for compa­nies that need to imple­ment both sets of regu­la­ti­ons at the same time. 

Since its foun­da­tion in 2021, Forma­lize has acqui­red over 8,000 custo­mers world­wide, inclu­ding McDo­nal­d’s, Star­bucks and, in the DACH region, Deve­ley, Emma and Der Grüne Punkt. The DACH region alre­ady accounts for 25% of annual recur­ring reve­nue. German custo­mers include MDR, Rhein­Land Versi­che­run­gen, Honda Finan­cial Services and the Munich District Office. 

“It is beco­ming incre­asingly diffi­cult for small and medium-sized compa­nies in the EU to meet all the requi­re­ments impo­sed on them by regu­la­ti­ons. Forma­lize impres­sed us with a supe­rior solu­tion that allows compa­nies to have the requi­red proces­ses and data under control. No other solu­tion came close to Forma­li­ze’s ability to capture the speci­fics of all count­ries and indus­tries while making the solu­tion easy to use,” says Fritz Oidt­mann, Mana­ging Part­ner at Acton Capi­tal.

About Forma­lize

Foun­ded in 2021, Forma­lize is a compli­ance soft­ware company that helps compa­nies manage complex regu­la­tory and risk-rela­­ted requi­re­ments. Its plat­form auto­ma­tes compli­ance proces­ses for NIS2, DORA, ISO27001, GDPR and more. Forma­lize serves over 8,000 custo­mers and has offices in Copen­ha­gen, Aarhus, Madrid and Milan. The company has raised a total of €50 million to date and employs more than 160 people. 

About Acton Capital

Acton Capi­tal is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal firm based in Munich and Vancou­ver. Since 1999, the team has been inves­t­ing in tech­­no­­logy-based busi­ness models from Europe and North America. With over two deca­des of expe­ri­ence and a deep under­stan­ding of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, Acton Capi­tal has helped over 100 start-ups build successful busi­nesses. — www.actoncapital.com

About Black­Fin

Black­Fin Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent private equity and venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in Euro­pean finan­cial services and tech­no­logy compa­nies with over €4.3 billion in assets under manage­ment as of Decem­ber 2024. Its venture team has backed more than 20 of Euro­pe’s fastest growing fintech, insur­tech and regtech compa­nies from Series A to Series C. Black­Fin was foun­ded in 2009 and has offices in Paris, London, Frank­furt, Amster­dam and Brussels. — www.blackfin.com