Irish-founded fraud-detection start-up Inscribe raises $10.5m

Inscribe, an Irish-founded but US-headquartered technology start-up, has raised $10.5 million (€8.7m) in investment, and intends to use the funds to grow its teams in both Dublin and San Francisco.

The online fraud-detection company was set up by twin brothers Ronan and Conor Burke, and Oisin Moran and James Eggers in San Francisco in 2017.

The Burke brothers were last year included in Forbes’ prestigious “30 under 30” list of Europe’s leading young innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders.

It has developed technology that allows insurers and lenders to quickly identify fraudulent documents via digital forensics and machine learning. Its technology detects more than $40 million in document fraud every month.

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Inscribe, which employs 14 people across Dublin and San Francisco, said it has experienced 12X growth year-over-year as its technology has been used by banks and payment processors to help identify fraud from online applications for lending and account openings.

According to its experience in processing hundreds of thousands of applications, between 3 per cent to 5 per cent of high-value online applications contain fraudulent information, such as inflated income.

"2020 kicked off a perfect storm for fraud, with the pandemic-driven shift towards applications and approvals moving from in-person to online only," said Ronan Burke, chief executive.

Inscribes uses three steps to confirm the veracity of applications: document forensics, data analytics to identify fraudulent patterns, and validation/verification.

Funding

“Inscribe is helping financial institutions battle this increase in fraud and save millions of dollars by detecting false identities, inflated revenues and inaccurate company information,” Ronan Burke added.

The Series A funding round was co-led by Uncork Capital, Foundry Group, and Crosslink Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, the highly regarded Silicon Valley-based start-up incubator. It brings to nearly $14 million the total raised by Inscribe to date.

Mr Burke said the company intends to create 30 engineering jobs in Dublin over the next two years.

“We have ambitious plans for the years to come. In 2021, we aim to 4x our revenue, 3x our team, and further expand our product to meet our customers’ needs. We’re incredibly excited for the year ahead.”