Darwinium Raises $18 Million to Accelerate Global Adoption of its Edge-based Digital Security and Fraud Prevention Platform

Led by U.S. Venture Partners, Darwinium's Series A brings its total funding to $26 million, positioning it to capitalize on the demand for its disruptive approach to curbing online fraud

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Darwinium, a next-generation digital security and fraud prevention platform, today announced it has raised $18 million in Series A financing led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), with participation from seed investors: Blackbird, Airtree Ventures and Accomplice. The new funding brings total investment to $26 million and enables Darwinium to scale its edge-based solution across global geographies, where it is quickly gaining traction across multiple vertical industries including fintech, eCommerce, financial services and gaming/gambling.

Online fraud has become more complex and harder to detect, facilitated by AI-tooling that is being exploited by adversaries. Businesses have responded with multiple point solutions deployed across the customer journey which have created friction for good users, and information siloes that continue to favor the fraudster.  

The 2022 Gartner® Market Guide for Online Fraud Detection* states "Detecting fraud in digital channels is a challenge, due to the competing requirements of dealing with emerging attack vectors and delivering a smooth user experience." They recommend that "Security and risk management leaders must orchestrate multiple capabilities to create dynamic user journeys while minimizing risk." 

We believe Darwinium addresses these challenges by delivering two key innovations: first, it moves fraud detection processes to the customer's network perimeter (or 'to the edge') to provide businesses a holistic view of their customers' online experience or "journey" across every digital touchpoint, and better separate trusted and risky behavior. Second, it has pioneered a SaaS-based approach to data protection that weaves strong, strategic data security into its unique, edge-based approach.

"The Darwinium team has built something truly unique," says Rick Lewis, General Partner at USVP. "Darwinium offers a product that is both simple to deploy and effective at reducing fraud losses and reputational damage associated with the ever-more complex web of digital fraud. Darwinium is a game-changer, differentiated in a crowded market, offering the innovation that businesses are asking for to simplify their risk stack."

Darwinium levels a playing field that favors fraudsters

By shifting detection processes to the edge, Darwinium is disrupting a market dominated by API-based products that risk-assess 'moments-in-time' – an approach that lacks the agility and context required to respond to evolving fraud.

Leveraging content delivery networks (CDNs) such as Cloudflare and AWS CloudFront to integrate at the network perimeter, Darwinium provides a continuous view of user behavior with flexible journey-time orchestration. This simpler, smarter deployment model puts full control of fraud and risk mitigation into the hands of businesses, providing the ability to decision and act on intelligence in real time, dynamically tailoring customer journeys according to trust and risk.

Darwinium's platform also has out-of-the-box integrations with third-party services that further enrich risk decisions with additional intelligence, making it easy for customers to simplify their cyber-fraud strategy by consolidating multiple solutions.

With a SaaS-based approach to managing sensitive customer data identities, Darwinium encrypts and anonymizes data on the edge. Any analyzed customer data is stored within an organization's own infrastructure, with its own keys. The platform uses a fully anonymized version of this data that can be processed and leveraged globally while remaining unexposed/unrecoverable to fraudsters. This streamlines compliance with regulations such as the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), while better preserving user privacy.

"AI capabilities have given fraudsters the upper hand of speed, scale and greater efficiency. This is why we designed Darwinium to deliver the visibility and coverage of a security tool, the context and insight of fraud solutions, with the agility of AI. It's the platform that will future-proof organizations against the most complex attacks," said Alisdair Faulkner, co-founder and CEO of Darwinium and former co-founder and CPO ThreatMetrix (acquired by LexisNexis Risk Solutions in 2018 for $830 million). "With this round, we can more effectively execute on our vision to protect every customer from the consequences of fraud, scams and abuse."

Darwinium has been recognized as a Representative Vendor for Online Fraud Detection in the 2022 Gartner® Market Guide for Online Fraud Detection,* and a Representative Vendor with emerging orchestration capabilities in the 2022 Gartner Innovation Insight: Journey Time Orchestration Mitigates Fraud Risk and Delivers Better UX report.**

An established innovator, Darwinium's solution has already been adopted worldwide by leading companies across its key verticals.

*Gartner, Market Guide for Online Fraud Detection, Akif Khan, Dan Ayoub, 12 December 2022.

**Gartner, Innovation Insight: Journey-Time Orchestration Mitigates Fraud Risk and Delivers Better UX, Akif Khan, 10 June 2022.

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About Darwinium 

Darwinium's pioneering approach to continuous customer protection takes security and fraud prevention to the edge, removing the operational burden of implementing and maintaining API-based solutions. Darwinium provides complete visibility and control of every digital interaction - across web, apps and APIs - to separate good and bad behavior, in real time. Businesses can make more accurate, real-time decisions, and take dynamic, tailored remediation that favors the customer and not the fraudster. 

About U.S. Venture Partners

U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) is a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm, partnering with entrepreneurs to transform their ideas into world-changing companies. USVP has invested in over 500 companies spanning four decades, including: Arkose Labs, Box, Carrot Fertility, Cato Networks, Check Point Software, Guidewire, Happy Returns, HeartFlow, HotelTonight, Human Interest, Imperva, Inari Medical, Inspire Medical Systems, Intersect ENT, Kenna, Medigate, Omada Health, Pluto TV, Standard Bariatrics, ThreatMetrix, Trunk Club, Trusteer, Yammer and Zerto. USVP focuses on early-stage start-ups that transform cybersecurity, enterprise software, consumer and healthcare. The USVP team consists of former entrepreneurs, technologists, corporate executives, and financial professionals who assist with strategy, scaling, team building, product development, and business development. USVP is based in Menlo Park, California.

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