Skip to main content
Home/Founders/Tobias Knaup
TK
Rising Founder

Tobias Knaup

CEO & Co-Founder at Hawk AI

Last updated: April 2026

CEO & Co-Founder🇩🇪 GermanyAge 40
Hawk AISeries C

Awaira Score

Net Worth

estimated

Total Funding

$50M

Hawk AI

Age

40

years old

Leadership Profile

Tobias Knaup serves as CEO & Co-Founder at Hawk AI, operating out of Germany at age 40. Hawk AI has raised $50M in total capital and currently sits at the Series C stage. Awaira tracks Tobias Knaup's profile as part of its comprehensive AI founder intelligence database.

Career Highlights

  • CEO & Co-Founder at Hawk AI
  • Series C stage company in AI Security
  • $50M in total funding raised
  • Based in 🇩🇪 Germany

Founder Score Breakdown

Awaira Founder Score

52/100

Rising Tier

Top 48% of tracked founders

0Average: 50100

Tobias Knaup is a rising founder in the AI ecosystem. This score indicates early-stage traction with room for significant growth as the company scales.

Key Numbers

Awaira Score

52

Age

40

Total Funding

$50M

Employees

100-500

About Tobias Knaup

Tobias Knaup is the CEO and co-founder of Hawk AI, a financial crime detection platform that uses artificial intelligence to help banks, payment processors, and financial institutions identify money laundering, fraud, and sanctions violations with significantly higher accuracy than traditional rule-based systems. Hawk AI machine learning models analyze transaction patterns, customer behavior, and network relationships to reduce false positives by up to 70% while improving detection of genuine suspicious activity. The platform serves financial institutions across Europe and the United States, processing billions of transactions annually across multiple currencies and jurisdictions. Knaup founded Hawk AI in Munich with the mission of making financial crime detection more effective and efficient, recognizing that legacy compliance systems generate excessive false alerts that drain investigator resources while missing sophisticated criminal networks.

Career Context

At 40, Tobias Knaup brings years of experience to Hawk AI. Under their leadership, Hawk AI has raised $50M. The company has grown to about 100-500 people. The company's been around since 2018 — 8 years and counting.

At a Glance

Tobias Knaup — CEO & Co-Founder, 40 years old, based in Germany.

💼

Role

CEO & Co-Founder

🏢

Company

Hawk AI

📅

Company Founded

2018

🚀

Stage

Series C

🌍

Based In

🇩🇪 Germany

🏷️

Sector

AI Security

👥

Team Size

100-500

Hawk AI — Company Profile

H

Hawk AI

🇩🇪AI SecuritySeries CEst. 2018

60

score

Hawk AI develops anti-money laundering (AML) and fraud detection software that combines traditional rule-based transaction monitoring with machine learning models to reduce false positive alert rates and improve detection of genuine financial crime patterns. The platform is deployed by banks and payment service providers globally to automate suspicious activity review and support SAR filing workflows.\n\nThe company raised approximately 50 million USD and has established a European customer base anchored in Germany before expanding to financial institutions across the US, UK, and Asia Pacific. Hawk AI targets the acute compliance cost problem in AML operations, where traditional rule-based monitoring generates 95 to 99 percent false positive rates that consume analyst resources without proportionally improving detection outcomes.\n\nRegulatory pressure on financial crime compliance is intensifying globally, with fines for AML failures reaching multi-billion dollar levels at major institutions. AI-driven compliance platforms that demonstrably reduce false positives while maintaining or improving suspicious activity detection carry a compelling ROI story for compliance departments managing growing alert volumes with constrained headcount. Hawk AI competes with established vendors and a growing field of AI-native AML startups. Hawk AI competes in the RegTech and financial crime detection market against established players like NICE Actimize, SAS, and Oracle Financial Services, as well as newer entrants like Featurespace and ComplyAdvantage. The company's primary value proposition centers on reducing false positive rates in transaction monitoring, a critical pain point for banks where compliance teams spend an estimated 80% of their time reviewing alerts that turn out to be benign. Based in Munich with US operations, Hawk AI serves mid-tier banks and fintech companies that lack the compliance budgets of tier-one institutions but face identical regulatory scrutiny, a segment significantly underserved by legacy enterprise vendors.

Total Funding

$50M

Employees

100-500

View full company profile

Tobias Knaup — Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Tobias Knaup?
Tobias Knaup serves as CEO & Co-Founder at Hawk AI, a company headquartered in Germany. Tobias Knaup is the CEO and co-founder of Hawk AI, a financial crime detection platform that uses artificial intelligence to help banks, payment processors, and financial institutions identify money laundering, fraud, and sanctions violations with significantly higher accuracy than traditional rule-based systems.
What is Tobias Knaup's net worth?
There is no reliable public estimate for Tobias Knaup's net worth. As CEO & Co-Founder at Hawk AI, most of their wealth is locked in private equity — making it nearly impossible to verify from the outside.
What company did Tobias Knaup found?
Hawk AI was co-founded by Tobias Knaup in 2018. The company focuses on AI Security and is based in Germany. To date, Hawk AI has raised $50M, reaching the Series C stage.
How old is Tobias Knaup?
Tobias Knaup is 40 years old, serving as CEO & Co-Founder at Hawk AI in Germany. At 40, Tobias Knaup brings substantial experience to the AI sector.
Where is Tobias Knaup from?
Tobias Knaup operates out of Germany 🇩🇪. As CEO & Co-Founder at Hawk AI, Tobias Knaup contributes to Germany's growing presence in the global AI market.
What is Tobias Knaup's Awaira Score?
Tobias Knaup holds an Awaira Score of 52/100, placing them among rising AI founders to watch. This composite metric evaluates company valuation, total funding, growth stage, team size, and market influence to rank AI founders objectively.
How much has Hawk AI raised?
Across all funding rounds, Hawk AI has attracted $50M in investment while progressing to the Series C stage. Full funding history is available on Awaira's Hawk AI page.
Is Tobias Knaup on Twitter or X?
Tobias Knaup's X (formerly Twitter) handle is not currently listed on Awaira. Check their LinkedIn profile or search directly on X for the most up-to-date information.
What is Hawk AI valued at?
A public valuation figure for Hawk AI is not currently available. Private AI companies often withhold this data between funding events.
Who are Tobias Knaup's co-founders?
Co-founder information for Tobias Knaup is not currently available on Awaira. Hawk AI may have been founded solo or co-founder data is being updated.

Awaira tracks every AI founder, company & funding round.

Free forever. No credit card. Real data only.