With billions of credit card transactions processed daily, there is an opportunity for fraudulent activity, or perceived fraudulent activity, to creep in. This is what happens: every year, Hundreds of millions of consumers Report credit card fraud.
SpadeOban co-founders MacTavish, Tess Bloch and Cooper Hart believe that a lot of fraud could be eliminated if card issuers had access to real-time transaction information.
When we last reported on Spade earlier this year, the company had raised $5 million to decipher the string of numbers and letters used by card issuers to allow transactions in seconds.
When the card is swiped or written, the source sends the data to Spade in real time. This transaction is linked to a verified merchant identity and is sent back to the issuer with information about the merchant identity, category, and real-time geo-location details.
Fast forward to now, the company is still bringing back this comprehensive merchant profile. It also does it in less than 50 milliseconds with 99% accuracy, which MacTavish told TechCrunch, makes Spade an industry leader. The average is about 75 ms.
This gives Spade’s clients, including Mercury, Sardine, Ramp and Unit, the ability to obtain the most accurate data needed to allow transactions quickly, create innovative card products and enhance fraud detection, in some cases by more than 15%.
“We’ve really changed our strategy,” CEO MacTavish told TechCrunch. “We had found our niche in fraud detection, so there was a big market for us. Fraud was becoming a bigger problem, especially as banks became more margin sensitive.
MacTavish declined to be specific about revenue and customer growth, only to say, “It’s been a big year of growth and it’s going to be another year of growth for us.”
That “big year of growth” secured Speed another round of funding. It recently raised $10 million in Series A capital led by Flourish Ventures. Andreessen Horowitz, Gradient Ventures, Y Combinator, Dash Fund, and Everywhere Ventures (the Fund) also participated.
Spade plans to use the funds to double its current team of 13 people to support ongoing technology, product development, data and customer success. The company is also preparing to expand outside the United States.
“When selling to banks, the most important thing is to get the first Beacon bank customer,” McTavish said. “We will also do more for our customers, including building functionality on the subsequent licensing side. Furthermore, the total volume of data we handle is something we are always monitoring and something we expect to grow significantly. As we delve deeper into the banking industry, I expect this number to be the “north star” for us and perhaps the first factor leading to a Series B in the future.