Sift Science Eyes Global Fraud Prevention With $53M In Funding

Fraud detection startup Sift Science has raised $53 million in a series D round, bringing its total amount raised to $107 million.

According to Venture Beat, this latest round of funding was led by Manhattan-based VC firm Stripes Group, with participation from existing investors that include Union Square Ventures, Insight Venture Partners and Spark Capital.

The startup’s previous investors include Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, PayPal cofounder Max Levchin and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Founded in 2011, Sift Science plans to use this latest round of funding to grow its fraud detection and prevention product globally. The company uses big data and machine learning to detect fake accounts, payment fraud, account takeover and content abuse. Clients include Twitter, Airbnb, Twilio, Instacart, Zillow and Yelp.

“Companies have always had to choose between protecting and growing their business,” noted Sift Science CEO and co-founder Jason Tan. “With Sift Science, they no longer need to make this tradeoff – they can reduce risk while also improving customer experiences.”

With data breaches in the news daily, it’s no surprise that fraud detection is big business. In fact, some estimate that the industry will become a $43 billion market by 2023 – and Sift Science is not the only player. For example, Palo Alto-based Simility received $17.5 million from Accel and PayPal, among others, in December.

“In a very short time, Simility has come to be recognized as a thought leader in fraud and risk management,” said CEO and co-founder Rahul Pangam. “Our customers, who span the spectrum from top FinTech innovators to Global Fortune 500 institutions, have validated this view by partnering with us to solve extremely hard problems.”

In addition, Sequoia Capital China led a $40 million round in Mountain View-based DataVisor, which also develops fraud detection software based on machine learning algorithms.

Other online fraud detection companies that have recently raised significant funding include Singapore-based CashShield; New York-based Forter; Paris-based Shift Technology; U.K.-based Featurespace and Atlanta-based Pindrop.