US-based digital security and fraud prevention platform Darwinium has announced the successful completion of an USD 18 million funding round. The Series A funding was led by US Venture Partners (USVP), and seed investors included Blackbird, Airtree Ventures, and Accomplice.

With this funding, the total investment in Darwinium stands at USD 26 million at the time of writing. This financial support will facilitate the expansion of Darwinium's edge-based solution into global markets, where it is experiencing rapid adoption across various industries, including fintech, ecommerce, financial services, and gaming/gambling. According to the official press release, the rise of online fraud, often driven by AI-enabled techniques employed by malicious actors, has made detection more challenging.

In response, businesses have deployed multiple solutions throughout the customer journey, resulting in user friction and information fragmentation that favours fraudsters. According to the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for Online Fraud Detection, addressing this challenge necessitates orchestrating multiple capabilities to create dynamic user journeys while minimising risk. Darwinium aims to tackle these issues with two primary innovations.

First, it relocates fraud detection processes to the customer's network perimeter, offering a comprehensive view of customers' online experiences and better distinguishing between trusted and risky behaviour. Second, it introduces a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach to data protection, seamlessly integrating strong data security into its edge-based methodology. In the company press release, officials from USVP commended Darwinium's unique approach, emphasising its ability to simplify risk management and reduce fraud losses in a crowded market.

How does Darwinium operate? Darwinium aims to disrupt the status quo by challenging the dominance of API-based products that assess 'moments-in-time' without the agility and context required to combat evolving fraud. Leveraging content delivery networks (CDNs) such as Cloudflare and AWS CloudFront, Darwinium provides a continuous view of user behaviour with flexible journey-time orchestration. This approach allows businesses to make real-time decisions based on trust and risk, influencing customer journeys accordingly.

Darwinium's platform offers out-of-the-box integrations with third-party services to aid risk decisions with additional intelligence and simplify cyber-fraud strategies for customers. By adopting a SaaS-based approach to manage sensitive customer data identities, Darwinium encrypts and anonymises data at the edge. Any customer data analysed is stored within an organisation's infrastructure, ensuring compliance with regulations such as the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), all while preserving user privacy.

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