Lynx, which focuses on detecting and preventing fraud and financial crimes, has closed its Series A funding round on €17m.
This funding round was led by Forgepoint Capital, a prominent venture capital firm specialising in cybersecurity and digital infrastructure software. Notably, Banco Santander, a shareholder in Lynx, also participated in the funding.
As a result of this investment, Forgepoint managing director Leo Casusol is set to join Lynx’s Board of Directors.
The funding comes at a critical time, as digital fraud rapidly becomes the most prevalent form of fraud globally. Financial institutions are increasingly investing in combating financial crimes, with global spending in this area surpassing $206bn. Lynx’s role in this fight is more relevant than ever, given the enormous cost of money laundering and financial crime compliance, which heavily burdens economies worldwide.
Founded two decades ago by Dr. Carlos Santa Cruz, a computer scientist and AI expert, Lynx harnesses advanced AI and machine learning technologies. The company’s primary mission is to prevent digital fraud and combat money laundering by analysing behavioural patterns and providing real-time risk assessments at an enterprise scale. Recently, Lynx welcomed a new CEO, Dan Dica, an industry veteran, to guide the company’s growth and expansion.
Lynx’s impact is extensive, aiding major financial institutions across Europe, the UK, the US, and Latin America. Its clients include Cielo, Brazil’s largest credit and debit card operator, and Banco Santander. The company’s AI models, trained on vast amounts of transaction data, provide robust fraud prevention services, including for cards, digital banking, e-commerce, and more.
The company’s innovative ‘Daily Adaptive Model’ sets it apart in the market. This unique capability enables continuous learning of new behaviours and daily model retraining, ensuring the AI remains effective against evolving fraud tactics.
The fresh capital injection will be channelled towards Lynx’s global expansion and the further development of its integrated fraud and anti-money laundering (AML) platform. This platform aims to offer comprehensive risk visibility and drive significant operational efficiencies.
Dan Dica, CEO of Lynx, shared his enthusiasm: “I am privileged to be working with Carlos and our extraordinary and passionate team, forward-looking clients, and supportive investors and Board who recognize the power of the Lynx platform and the critical problems we are out to solve. Together, we will continue to advance our platform capabilities to better serve our clients across the globe in the enduring fight against fraud and financial crime.”
Julio Bento, Senior Manager of Fraud Prevention and AML at Cielo, praised Lynx: “We are one of the leading payment processing companies in Latin America, with more than 1 million customers across Brazil and we chose Lynx due to its advanced AI and performance in predicting and identifying fraud. At Cielo, we process large quantities of transactions, so speed is essential.
“We found Lynx to be the fastest, with the highest accuracy and the fewest false positives. We are impressed by Lynx’ continuous innovation in the field of AI, automatic machine learning models being one example. Models can learn customer behavior and provide our customers with a great experience, enabling genuine transactions to flow while identifying fraud in real time. Over the years, Lynx has been and continues to be a trusted and reliable technology partner.”
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