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Veriff Acquires Vespia: Bringing KYB to the Next Level

Veriff Acquires Vespia: Bringing KYB to the Next Level

FinTech

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.”

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

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

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

FinTech

Hedia wants to give people with diabetes back their freedom

This article has been prepared in collaboration with TechBBQ. A good adventure can sometimes have an unfortunate twist. Entrepreneur and founder of Hedia, Peter...

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

FinTech

Startup of the week: while waiting for the right idea, they sold Christmas sweaters. Now they’re turning over millions and want to be Europe’s biggest

Christmas is upon us, the feast of hearts, and while you can’t go to Christmas parties or meet for mulled wine in the same...

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

Crypto / Blockchain / Web3

Former Nordic Revolut boss raises €25m to automate financial reporting

At 21, Lasse Kalkars went all-in on his first big startup venture, a US-based crypto-focused investment app. He later became Nordic head of Revolut....

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

FinTech

Tell me what you praise, I’ll tell you who you are

Renting is not giving up buying, it’s making the choice to finance in a different way, in a smart way. So, two years ago,...

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

FinTech

After the Covid-19 crisis, the challenge of digitizing VSEs and SMEs

Published last November, the second edition of the Cegid / OpinionWay barometer on the ecosystem of entrepreneurs and their support in the face of...

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

FinTech

Xavier Lorphelin (Serena Capital): “Serena Capital closes a new €300 million fund

JDN. You are launching a new investment fund with €300 million to invest in French and European start-ups. What was the return on investment...

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

FinTech

Covid-19 or the resistance of export!

These last three years have been hard for French companies: at the end of 2018, there was first the yellow vest crisis, then in...

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

AdTech

Employment: French start-ups are not (yet?) in crisis

Despite a drop in demand in certain sectors and all the uncertainties that the pandemic is bringing to bear on the future, the start-ups...

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

FinTech

2021: 4 measures expected by the self-employed

1. More support in the health crisis Without being a specific measure, many self-employed people expect more support in 2021 if the health crisis...

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

FinTech

90% of entrepreneurs follow a destructive system for the survival of their business, without even knowing it

The billing cycle of 90% of companies today is often the same: from the execution of the service – sometimes preceded by a request...

Gerald MillerDecember 28, 2021

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