Baran Ozkan is the co-founder and CEO of Flagright, an AI-native, centralized, no-code anti-money laundering compliance and risk management solution provider for financial institutions.

Flagright recently raised a $4.3M seed round to further develop its AI agents. This year, they’ll be launching a product family of AI agents that automates compliance workflows for screening, monitoring, governance, and quality assurance.

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👋🏼  How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

I’m the CEO and co-founder of Flagright. We help banks and fintechs keep your money safe by fighting financial crime. Our AI-native platform helps them detect fraud, prevent money laundering, and stay compliant with regulations in real time.

As the CEO, my life is very exciting as no two days are the same. Some days I’m deep in product strategy, customer calls, others I’m working with my team to handle partnerships, or making key decisions to drive the business forward.

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🧐  What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

Flagright was actually born out of my own frustration with the existing options in the market. I spent 2 years searching for a real-time, risk-based transaction monitoring solution only to find existing solutions to be clunky, overpriced, or overpromised and underdelivered. 

So together with my co-founder, we decided to build the product I wish I could have bought. Within six months of launching our initial version of our product, we were already serving customers across three continents.

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‍🏆  What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Starting Flagright has been the biggest highlight of my career so far. 

It all started with a personal frustration, and a drive to fix things— now I get to build something meaningful with an amazing team, help our customers, and contribute to a safer financial world. 

The best part? This is just the beginning.

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🔍  What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?

One trend I am continuing to closely watch this year is the development of AI, especially LLMs. 

We have already moved beyond simple task automation to approximating complex decision-making, which opens up entirely new possibilities. 

For us, this reinforces the belief that the future of compliance lies in proactive, adaptive systems that can evolve faster than bad actors.

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💼  What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry? 

Don’t expect overnight success, it takes time to build trust.

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🗣  What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours? 

Financial crime compliance.

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🎥  What's your favorite movie/TV show? 

Silicon Valley.

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🍨  What's your go-to ice cream flavor?

The classic cookies and cream.