Pat Phelan, CEO and co-founder of Trustev (illustration by Think Visual)
Cork-headquartered start-up Trustev revealed at the Dublin Web Summit it has just closed a US$3m seed-funding round from US venture capital fund Greycroft Partners, Mangrove Capital Partners, ACT Venture Capital, Telefónica’s Wayra and Enterprise Ireland.
Less than 10 months since launching at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Trustev has grown from four employees to 15. The company has also won the European Commission’s Tech All-Star Award, the result of an EU-wide search to find the best young technology start-up.
The US$3m seed round will finance Trustev’s accelerated expansion to the United States, where the company will soon open an office in New York City, as well as further the development of Trustev’s anti-fraud and payment-protection solutions for e-commerce.
Digital fingerprints
“We’re thrilled to have such a strong pedigree of investors who believe in our technology and its proven ability to fight e-commerce fraud,” said Trustev co-founder and CEO Pat Phelan.
“In addition to saving tens of millions of dollars through robust fraud prevention, Trustev also helps online merchants increase overseas opportunities by removing the danger of selling across international borders.
“Our focus is on pushing the complexity of fraud into the background, allowing online retailers to concentrate on servicing their honest customers while we identify the troublemakers,” Phelan said.
According to research by eMarketer, global e-commerce sales are expected to reach nearly US$1.3trn in 2013, making online fraud prevention an urgent and important requirement for any merchant.
Trustev addresses this by using multiple dynamic data sources to independently verify a user’s identity on e-commerce sites. This guarantees online merchants that they are dealing with actual customers and not fraudsters.
Its passive authentication technologies work in the background, confirming and securing the transaction, while its active authentication technologies work to confirm the user’s identity before the purchase is complete.
Phelan revealed that the investment will bring Trustev to the next level of its journey, which will involve he and his wife moving lock, stock and barrel to New York.
Illustration by Think Visual
