Arkose Labs Secures $6M in Series A

Arkose Labs, providers of online fraud prevention technology combining user risk assessment and sophisticated enforcement challenges, today announced it has successfully closed a $6 million round in Series A funding led by US Venture Partners.

The company helps some of the world's most targeted businesses solve online fraud that can cost millions each year in financial losses with its sophisticated global telemetry, user behavioral risk assessment and patent-pending enforcement challenges. Arkose Labs plans to use this infusion of funding to expand its product roadmap and go to market efforts.

"As automated attacks become more sophisticated, there is a growing need for security solutions that can not only identify fraud and abuse, but also provide an enforcement capability to prevent it," said Kevin Gosschalk, CEO of Arkose Labs. "Stopping fraud requires a solution rooted in prevention, not mitigation. This is what makes our technology unique. We are the only company to offer the combination of global telemetry and a reliable enforcement mechanism that is guaranteed to stop automated abuse."

"This funding will allow us to accelerate hiring across the organization, expand our product roadmap, build out our enterprise go to market teams, and solve multi-million dollar problems for our expanding customer base," added Gosschalk.

Online fraud has skyrocketed over the last few years, driven primarily by economic motivations. According to PwC's 2018 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey, 49 percent of global organizations say they've experienced fraud and economic crime in the past two years, up from 36 percent in 2016.

Arkose Labs technology exclusively stops abuse before it occurs without adding friction to the user experience, and is the only solution provider to offer a 100 percent service level agreement that includes a money-back guarantee for customers in the event that the technology does not stop an automated attack. With the prevalence of more sophisticated automated attacks, adoption of Arkose Labs technology is accelerating across sectors including online marketplaces, travel, banking, social media, ticketing and online gaming.

As companies across the industry are experiencing more fraudulent user activity coming from automated bots, game maker Electronic Arts decided to look for a new solution to eliminate the problem at the source. The EA Team found that the Arkose Labs solution worked seamlessly within its existing architecture.

"Immediately after deploying Arkose, we saw a dramatic difference," said Matt Thomlinson, senior vice president and CISO for Electronic Arts. "It was like night-and-day. Our team was amazed at how well the solution worked compared with our previous technology, and it allowed us to free up resources and energy to focus on continuing to innovate for our players."

In addition, the company announced Dafina Toncheva, partner with US Venture Partners, and Jeremiah Grossman, founder and CEO of Bit Discovery, will join its Board of Directors. Toncheva has extensive experience with cybersecurity startups such as Prevoty, Kenna Security and Cloudflare. Grossman, formerly an advisor to Arkose Labs, is a world-renown professional hacker and founder of WhiteHat Security.

"Arkose Labs is bringing a unique approach to fraud and abuse prevention that combines telemetry and enforcement, that we simply have not seen before," said Toncheva. "We believe this technology will have a material impact on all businesses with an online presence as they continue to take steps to protect customers and stop malicious behavior in its tracks."

"For nearly two decades I've witnessed the serious social and financial impact of automated abuse on organizations and millions of their customers," said Grossman. "As soon as I saw what Arkose Labs technology was capable of, I knew I had to be involved. To say their technology is innovative just doesn't go far enough — it's game changing."

About Arkose Labs

Previously known as FunCaptcha, Arkose Labs is solving multi-million dollar online fraud problems for major global businesses in sectors including online marketplaces, travel, banking, social media, ticketing and online gaming. Our bilateral approach combines global telemetry with a patent pending enforcement challenge that stops fraud without false positives and without friction for users. Arkose Labs is based in San Francisco, Calif., with offices in Brisbane, Australia. For more information, visit www.ArkoseLabs.com or on Twitter @ArkoseLabs.