Applying AI to Know Who is Real and Who is Fake: Munich-based AI Fraud Detection Company, fraud0.com, Raises €6 Million

Munich-based AI Fraud Detection company, fraud0.com, is thrilled to announce that it has successfully raised €6 million in funding.

The investment round was led by Signals.vc and included top-tier investors such as: 

• Brock Saunders – Managing Partner at Mattock Capital
• Sven Rittau – Zooplus Co-Founder, CEO K5
• OMR X
• Alexander Goesswein – former Managing Director Criteo Central Europe
• Daniel Johannsen – Co-founder at Usercentrics 
• A Round Capital with Andy Goldstein
• Arc Investors
• Stefan Kalteis – Chief Executive Officer at Kailuana
• Johannes Ditterich – CEO of Kalimango GmbH
• Family Mueller-Medien
• Christian Lubasch – Chief Data Officer at Snowplow
• Yali Sassoon – Co-founder and CPO at Snowplow
• Heinz Raufer – Managing Director at Raufer Capital GmbH and former CEO Hotel.de
• Marc Eckes
• Leif Lupp – Managing Partner at Vidia Equity
• Andreas Rabuser – CEO SecureCommerce

The company plans to develop new cybersecurity products, extend its services to new markets and solidify its position as a leading provider in the fight against fraudulent activities on the internet.

Fakes everywhere – the new era of the Internet. 

Anyone who has ever used ChatGPT can roughly imagine how the world will change in the near future due to technological advancements in artificial intelligence. The rise of the fake web has become a pressing issue in today’s digital landscape. Using modern AI, it is now trivial to spin up 100k fake bot accounts with human-like behaviour for less than a penny per account. We are coming to the end of this version of the internet, and it will be replaced by something completely different.

The constant rapid advancements in AI pose a major challenge for everything we do online, as it becomes increasingly difficult to determine what is real and, more importantly, who is real. With the rise of AI-generated content, deep fakes, manipulated social media accounts and the spread of disinformation,
the authenticity of online information is at stake. 

Bots – already accounting for more than half of global internet traffic – have infiltrated all areas of our digital experience before our eyes:

•  Scalper bots regularly cause chaos and distort the market. Most recently, they emptied the entire ticket inventory for Taylor Swift’s next tour in a matter of minutes, only to resell them on the secondary market with a massive profit margin.

•  Social networks are fighting a losing battle against fake accounts every day. In 2022 Facebook alone deleted 6 billion fake accounts – that’s almost the total number of humans on this planet. A recent study on Twitter/X revealed that from the 153 million accounts that follow Elon Musk, 42% have 0 followers, 40% have never sent a Tweet and are most likely bot-generated fakes.

•  With over $600 billion spent annually on digital advertising worldwide, it is estimated that more than $100 billion is stolen by malicious actors through bot-generated fake clicks, impressions or fake leads disrupting all lead generation activities.

It has never been easier to program bots with human-like behaviour and buy them on a large scale for little money. 

Mischa Rürup, business angel of fraud0.com: “Bots are the weapons of choice for cyber criminals. They are everywhere these days and mimicking human behaviour down to the smallest detail. fraud0.com offers a robust defence against automated threats while respecting users’ privacy.”

 fraud0.com is at the forefront of combatting the challenges of the fake web by using cutting-edge AI and cybersecurity techniques – analysing over 4.000 attributes – data points like connection speed, mouse movement, device rotation etc. – and applying JavaScript challenges, honey pots, behavioural analytics, and further undisclosed cybersecurity techniques to determine whether there is a human behind the screen or automated software pretending to be human. 

Daniel Kirchleitner, GP of Signals.vc: “We’re highly impressed with fraud0.com’s rapid and resource-efficient achievements. They’ve launched multiple successful products, attracting major clients. Moreover, they’re actively developing new products and integrations set to release soon. Their software is revolutionary for many businesses.”

Empowering marketers and advertisers.

The impact of fake web activities is particularly significant for online marketers. As it turns out, approximately 16% of clicks on online marketing ads & 32% of online impressions are generated by bots, leading to wasted budgets, ineffective campaigns and polluted analytics data. Depending on the platform, the number can be even higher. fraud0.com detected up to 72% bot generated activity originating from TikTok. Irrespective of the sector—be it travel, e-commerce, or insurance—every company that has a website, runs online advertisements, or utilises lead generation forms encounters the challenge of dealing with fake traffic.

Partnering with the world’s leading fraud expert.

In addition to the funding, fraud0.com officially announces a close partnership with Dr. Augustine Fou – the world’s leading fraud researcher who graduated from MIT with a PhD at 23. Dr. Fou has authored over 1,500 scientific articles on cybersecurity, developed proprietary technology, and works with leading global brands to protect them from the impact of fake traffic.

Dr. Fou about the partnership: “Digital fraud is literally the bad guys’ ATM machine – it spits out cash. And every year $600 billion of marketeers’ digital budget refills it. I am happy to bring my expertise in this field together with fraud0.com to the market”

Tilman Pfeiffer (CEO) and Daniel Distler (COO) of fraud0.com – state: “We are extremely proud and honoured to have Dr. Fou on board as he is one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, experts in the field of digital fraud detection. Together we provide every advertiser with the best-in-class fraud detection technology to have a truthful dataset and put real humans back to the centre of marketing.”

 For anyone who wants to test the software, fraud0.com offers a no-strings attached free trial. Implementation takes less than a minute by copy/paste of a single line of JavaScript code.

About fraud0.com

fraud0 is a fraud detection company powered by AI and backed by some of Europe’s best software investors and serial entrepreneurs. Customers include well-known brands such as Apollo Optik, Ulla Popken or AboutYou. 

For further information, please contact:

Tilman Pfeiffer 
CEO
tp@fraud0.com
fraud0 GmbH
Sendlinger Str. 7, 80331 München