Startup spotlight: anti-fraud provider, buguroo
As we continue our series of flash interviews on startups to watch in 2020, we speak with Pablo de la Riva, CEO at anti-fraud solutions provider, buguroo.
What does buguroo do?
Since 2015, buguroo has specialised in developing anti-fraud solutions for the banking industry. Its solutions, which leverage artificial intelligence and deep learning models, today protect more than 50 million banking customers across the world from online fraud.
Using behavioural biometrics, buguroo is able to build unique profiles of each and every banking customer. Equivalent to their ‘digital DNA’, this information is derived from hundreds of sources, from the way a customer moves their mouse to the speed and rhythm with which they type their name. Once buguroo has built these profiles, it’s able to compare each online session against the user’s expected pattern of behaviour. In a nutshell, it enables the bank to weed out the fraudsters from legitimate customers, before they can do any damage.
What gives buguroo its competitive edge?
buguroo is the most accurate profiler of user behaviour, gathering information from the widest range of sources. Other vendors compare user sessions with the behavioural traits of groups or ‘clusters’ of users, whether it’s known fraudsters or typical customers. buguroo instead compares each customer’s interaction with the bank against their entire personal history, allowing buguroo to discover even the smallest of anomalies and deliver a risk score in real time – detecting fraud before it’s committed.
buguroo’s flagship solution – bugFraud – covers all fraud use cases in the market, and offers banks all three capabilities included in any comprehensive anti-fraud strategy; behavioural analytics, malware protection and device assessment - ensuring that banks can confirm users aren’t being impersonated or manipulated.
Furthermore, bugFraud works dynamically, from login to logout, monitoring customer behaviour throughout the session. If someone gains remote access to their device halfway through, buguroo can detect it and notify the bank.
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What was the last award buguroo won?
The last award buguroo won was for ‘Overall Fraud Prevention Solution of the Year’ at the 2019 Cybersecurity Breakthrough Awards for its innovative Fraudster Hunter solution.
Fraudster Hunter is a new functionality that’s available within bugFraud. Just like bugFraud is able to profile the unique behaviour traits of every banking customer, Fraudster Hunter enables it to repeat the exercise for cybercriminals. It works by identifying the fraudsters who are already active in the bank and building a unique ‘cyber profile’ for each one based on the way they operate.
This protects real users from impersonation or manipulation attacks, whilst banks can use the information to understand the ways in which the criminals behave in order to recognise and expose them when they try to attack.
Buguroo was also a finalist in the prestigious EIT Digital Challenge, making it one of the top 25 tech scaleups in Europe.
Is there any exciting news you’d like to share with our readers at Business Chief Europe?
buguroo recently secured US$11mn in series A funding led by cybersecurity-focused venture capital firm Ten Eleven Ventures, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, as well as Spain and Latin America-focused venture capital firm, Seaya Ventures. Existing investors Conexo Ventures and Inveready Technology Investment Group also participated in the round.
The funding will help bring buguroo’s unique deep learning based online fraud detection to yet more financial services customers. It will also be used to accelerate product development. New features, as well as enhancements to bugFraud’s existing capabilities, will ensure that financial services companies can remain one step ahead of fraudulent activity, and that users are protected from login to logout, without impacting their experience of banking online.
What can we expect from buguroo in 2020?
In the short term, buguroo will focus on its expansion into new geographical markets. Equipped with a great track record in Southern Europe and Latin America, the company will now also target Northern Europe – particularly the UK, Germany and France – as well as the US.
In the longer term, buguroo remains focused on staying one step ahead of fraud, cutting it off at the root by proactively identifying fraudsters, as well as any fraudulent activity. The company is also aware that banks – and their customers – have little tolerance for security procedures and policies that create friction in the online experience, so buguroo is committed to protecting all fraud with the lowest possible impact on the user.
For more information on all business in Europe, please take a look at the latest edition of Business Chief Europe.
