FinTech

Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

StartupMafia – News from startup industry

Veriff Acquires Vespia: Bringing KYB to the Next Level

Veriff Acquires Vespia: Bringing KYB to the Next Level

Veriff, a global leader in identity verification, has announced the acquisition of Vespia, a KYB (Know Your Business) startup focused on fast, scalable business...

Nastya ZelenovskaFebruary 5, 2026

London’s FALKIN raises €1.7M to fight scams before they happen As AI-driven scams surge across Europe, London-based digital safety startup FALKIN has raised €1.7 million ($2 million) in pre-seed funding to stop fraud before it starts. The round was led by TriplePoint Ventures, with backing from Notion Capital, BackFuture Ventures, Aviva/Founders Factory, Haatch, Found Capital, and Founders Capital. Individual investors include fintech veterans Pierre Decote, Group Chief Risk Officer at Revolut, and Ben Enckevort, CTO and co-founder of Metomic. Shifting protection from payments to persuasion “The new battlefield isn’t payments – it’s persuasion,” said Boaz Valkin, co-founder of FALKIN. “Protection has to move earlier, to the moment before someone clicks, replies, or transfers. We’re turning AI from a weapon of deception into a tool for defense.” Founded in 2024, FALKIN builds embedded AI tools that detect manipulation and deception before a transaction ever takes place. Instead of monitoring fraud after money moves, the company integrates real-time behavioral analysis directly into banking and customer-service apps, helping financial institutions prevent scams at the source. According to co-founder and COO Joel Frisch, “Modern scams are sophisticated, and no single red flag tells the whole story. The key is to analyze all the signals that reveal deception to build a complete picture. When we embed that intelligence inside the banking apps people already trust, protection becomes effortless.” A growing European battle against AI-enabled fraud FALKIN’s funding comes amid a broader wave of investment in anti-fraud innovation. Across Europe, startups like Hawk (Germany), Resistant AI (Czechia), and Acoru (Spain) have collectively raised over €80 million this year to tackle rising financial crime driven by AI. A recent EU-Startups report found that AI-related fraud losses in Europe have surpassed €1.3 billion, as deepfakes, voice cloning, and synthetic identity attacks become mainstream tools for scammers. “AI has blurred the line between what’s real and what’s fake, and traditional systems aren’t built for that reality,” said Sam Stone of TriplePoint Ventures. “FALKIN’s vision to make proactive safety universal has the potential to redefine digital trust.” The invisible enemy Scams now represent one of the fastest-growing financial threats worldwide. Deloitte projects that U.S. losses from authorized push payment fraud could hit €12.9 billion ($15 billion) by 2028, while the U.K. saw over seven million victims last year—most of whom never reported the crime. Despite heavy investment in fraud detection, most tools still activate after funds have left an account. FALKIN’s approach moves protection upstream, targeting the psychological manipulation that precedes scams. Early trials with bank innovation teams and tens of thousands of users across the U.S. and U.K. have shown promising results: 78% of users reported feeling safer online, and over half said prevention was more valuable than reimbursement. Next steps: embedding safety everywhere The fresh capital will accelerate hiring, product development, and financial-institution integrations, as well as support the launch of Safety Labs — a program helping community banks and credit unions deploy scam-prevention tools with minimal technical effort. FALKIN is also expanding its integration ecosystem, allowing financial institutions to embed digital safety layers across customer journeys and communication systems. “Scammers are using AI to scale deception,” Valkin said. “We’re using it to scale trust.”

FinTech

London’s FALKIN raises €1.7M to fight scams before they happen

London-based digital safety startup FALKIN has raised €1.7 million ($2 million) in pre-seed funding to stop scams before they start, as banks and consumers...

Gerald MillerNovember 11, 2025

FinTech

Stockholm’s Grasp raises €6M to automate the manual grind in finance and consulting

Stockholm-based AI startup Grasp has secured €6 million in Series A funding to accelerate development of its multi-agent platform that automates the analytical and...

Gerald MillerOctober 28, 2025

Notion Capital expands focus on AI-driven software and FinTech

AdTech

Notion Capital Closes €114M Growth Fund to Double Down on AI and FinTech Scaleups

London-based VC firm Notion Capital has closed a new €114 million fund as it sharpens its focus on AI-driven software and FinTech startups across...

Gerald MillerSeptember 30, 2025

CleanTech

Startup of the week produces affordable sports prostheses: “Everyone should have the opportunity for an active life”

Sports prostheses need to be more accessible for active people with amputations. This is the view of start-up Levitate, which has developed a solution...

Gerald MillerApril 21, 2022

FinTech

Reviews, restaurants and pandemic: customers more and more severe. RepUP analyzes 27 million comments and makes an agreement with Foodys, the 100% Italian food delivery of the Mvnd group.

The pandemic has changed everything. That’s true. But do we have any data on which to base and measure this change? RepUP, the startup...

Gerald MillerApril 21, 2022

E-commerce

Cracow startup Selmo.io has raised PLN 1 million. It will develop a platform to professionalize sales via Facebook

Live commerce is one of the trends that has been growing in the ecommerce industry for the past few years. In live broadcasts conducted...

Gerald MillerApril 20, 2022

EdTech

How do you raise money to expand to Africa?

Trade turnover between Poland and African countries increased by a record 29% last year and this year, looking at the mood of Polish entrepreneurs,...

Gerald MillerApril 20, 2022

FinTech

Voice assistant in IKO will analyze card payments at any merchant

– Customers are looking for more and more innovative solutions and services in the area of financial management – they should be simple to...

Gerald MillerApril 17, 2022

FinTech

Unfold.vc invested a total of PLN 1 million in a drink making machine

The recent recapitalization of Wroclaw startup Poley.me by Unfold.vc is in line with the strategy of the fund, which after the rebranding announced in...

Gerald MillerApril 16, 2022