Pictured: Members of Trustev. (From left) Chris Kennedy, Pat Phelan and John Peavoy
Fast-growing Irish start-up Trustev, focused on detecting and defending against fraud in the burgeoning social commerce space, is looking to establish new offices in the US and the UK, Siliconrepublic.com has learned.
The company has raised up to €250,000 so far and is in the process of raising further funding.
In recent weeks was it selected for Telefonica’s Wayra programme in Dublin where it was given office space and received a €40,000 injection.
Trustev is headed by entrepreneur Pat Phelan and its technology is the brainchild of CTO Chris Kennedy.
The company claims to be the first company of its kind to use social data as a primary data source when online businesses are making identity determinations.
According to Goldman Sachs estimated turnover from e-commerce in 2014 will hit US$1 trillion, out of which online fraud will be a US$20bn a year problem.
Trustev employs nine people in Dublin and Cork and expects to employ 20 people by the end of the summer.
In recent weeks it recruited ex-Facebook data scientist Diarmuid Thoma as its new “data overlord.”
The company has also appointed an influential advisory team that includes Trevor Healy who sold his company Amobee to Singtel for US$321m last month, digital entrepreneur Dylan Collins who sold his company Demonware to Activision in 2006 for US$15m and is currently leading Box of Awesome in the UK, David Coallier of EngineYard and Anil Hansjee, the former head of M&A at Google EMEA.
Sources told Siliconrepublic.com that Trustev is quickly signing up online merchants and enterprises to its social fingerprinting platform, adding six businesses in the past week.
