Cyber-intelligence startup Apate.ai, a countermeasure to Australia’s $2 billion rip-off business, has raised $2.5 million in Seed funding.
The spherical was led by OIF Ventures with participation from Investible.
The funds are for product growth and worldwide enlargement, together with hiring engineering and go-to-market groups, in addition to increasing its partnerships with monetary establishments, telcos, and governments each in Australia and key worldwide markets.
Apate.ai was based final 12 months as a spin-out from Macquarie College. The startup has developed hundreds of cutting-edge conversational AI bots that interact scammers throughout voice calls and messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram and SMS.
Final month Apate.ai introduced a partnership with CommBank to create AI-powered “sufferer bots” to have interaction with scammers and waste their time, whereas additionally gathering intelligence and knowledge.
The near real-time rip-off risk intelligence is utilized by CommBank to safeguard each prospects and the broader neighborhood.
The bots simulate real looking conversations – proper all the way down to swearing and Aussie slang – to divert, distract, and collect essential intelligence scammers, turning these techniques towards them.
Cofounder and CEO Professor Dali Kaafar mentioned they’re constructing a military of bots to dismantle scammer operations at scale.
“Scammers assume they’re untouchable. We’re right here to alter that,” he mentioned.
“Our bots divert and distract scammers, retaining them away from actual victims while extracting essential risk intelligence. The intelligence we collect is used to additional disrupt rip-off operations at their supply, serving to to guard susceptible communities. We’re a mission-led organisation, and this funding permits us to scale our impression exponentially.”
$2bn misplaced to scams
In 2024, Australians misplaced in extra of $2 billion to scams, with greater than 494,000 incidents reported.
The startup has additionally been working with teclo TPG Telecom, and the bots have diverted over 280,000 rip-off calls, amounting to over 100 days of scammers’ time and assets wasted in decoy conversations.
Prof Kaafar mentioned the deployment has helped stop greater than $7.6 million in potential buyer losses, whereas gathering essential intelligence on scammer TTPs (techniques, methods and procedures), together with the identification of over 20,000 organisations that have been impersonated, together with banks, telcos, and authorities our bodies such MyGov and the ATO.
His cofounder and Chief Business Officer Brad Joffe mentioned the bots take rip-off responses from reactive to predictive.
“We’re giving establishments like CommBank the instruments to behave sooner and smarter towards a risk that’s evolving by the hour,” he mentioned.
“That is only the start. We’re laying the inspiration for a world intelligence infrastructure that may assist dismantle rip-off operations earlier than they ever attain actual victims.”
Gathering rip-off intelligence
The Apate platform makes use of conversational AI and machine studying to adapt in actual time, deploying hundreds of various AI bots who mimic totally different human feelings, accents, and behaviours to maintain scammers engaged longer and extract significant intelligence. That intelligence is then shared with monetary establishments, telcos and authorities businesses to assist them establish new rip-off typologies and allow takedown efforts to shield customers.
“That is the start of a brand new paradigm,” Professor Kaafar mentioned.
“The identical manner we spend money on bodily safety techniques, we’re constructing a brand new intelligence layer to detect and disrupt scams at their supply – with intelligence collected from the mouths and keystrokes of the scammers themselves.”
The funding introduced comes throughout Scamwatch‘s annual Rip-off Consciousness Week.
OIF Ventures cofounder Jerry Stesel praised the worldwide alternative for Apate and its “extraordinary impression potential”.
“Their mixture of world-class educational expertise, AI engineering, and business focus positions them to turn out to be a category-defining firm,” he mentioned
Extra at Apate.ai – and beneath is an instance of an Australian-voiced Apate bot taking up a scammer.