Karavel, an AI-powered compliance platform built for highly regulated sectors, has secured £1.25 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by Fuel Ventures.
The investment will support product development and accelerate Karavel’s commercial expansion across the UK and Europe, as the company looks to modernize workflows for organizations facing complex regulatory scrutiny.
Karavel is designed for legal, compliance and marketing teams working in sectors such as financial services, fintech, insurance, healthcare and consumer credit. Its platform combines regulatory monitoring, advertising and marketing reviews, horizon scanning and compliance gap analysis into a single, AI-driven interface, replacing the disparate and manual processes still widely used across regulated industries.
The funding comes at a time when pressure is mounting on compliance groups. Regulatory frameworks are expanding, enforcement is increasing and the costs of non-compliance continue to rise. Despite this, many organizations still rely on spreadsheets, manual reporting and external legal support to track change control and authorize communications, creating bottlenecks, reducing product launches and increasing costs.
Founded by Pedro Sousa and Nav Garcha, Karavel was built to meet these challenges. The pair bring experience from companies including Revolut, Deliveroo, CNN and ClearScore, and say the platform was born out of their frustration with outdated compliance systems.
Karavel’s technology automates financial development and advertising reviews, monitors regulatory updates in real time and flags relevant changes as they occur. Its AI analyzes new regulations, extracts actionable requirements and provides clear, actionable guidance to help teams respond quickly and confidently.
The company says the results are already significant. Its AdCheck tool allows financial promotions to be reviewed three times faster, with a 91 percent approval rate for the first pass. Meanwhile, its over-the-horizon scanning capabilities replace biweekly reporting with daily automated alerts, delivering up to fourteen times efficiency gains and reducing outsourced legal spending by 73 percent within the first year.
Pedro Sousa, founder of Karavel, said the platform was designed to address the real-world pressures professionals face every day.
“During my time as head of compliance, I saw firsthand the manual, repetitive work, disparate processes and constant concern that something important might be missed,” he said. “We built Karavel to give compliance, legal and marketing teams the clarity, automation and confidence they always wished they had in previous roles.”
Mark Pearson, founder of Fuel Ventures, said Karavel faces one of the most pressing challenges in operating in the regulated sector.
“Karavel is redefining how organizations interpret rules, review content and connect across teams,” he said. “The founders combined deep compliance expertise with advanced AI to replace outdated workflows with intelligent systems that deliver real commercial impact. We’re proud to support their vision as they grow.”
With regulatory processing that shows no signs of easing, Karavel positions itself as the core infrastructure platform for organizations that need to move quickly without compromising compliance.
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