With US $550,000 in an oversubscribed pre-seed round, South African startup Orca Fraud intends to use the funds to safeguard emerging markets against fraud.
Founded in January by Thalia Pillay and Carla Wilby, Orca provides the resources required for compliance officers and fraud analysts at banks and fintechs to successfully tackle a range of fraud schemes.
With participation from First Circle Capital, Musha Ventures, Kara Ventures, a number of strategic business angels, as well as family and friends, the startup has raised a US $550,000 pre-seed round, led by Norrsken22.
With the money raised, Orca intends to hire more employees and work with South African clients to develop, test, and refine its fraud and compliance offerings.
“We are excited about the strategic investors we have onboard, who can provide us with various types of support we are looking for at this early-stage. We aimed to have a diverse cap table that reflects where and how we plan on growing the business. Most of our investors are builders themselves who have successfully navigated B2B and fraud spaces which makes them especially relevant to us,” Pillay said.
As emerging market banks and fintechs expand to offer greater financial inclusion, Nivesh Pather of Norrsken22 said his company has observed the scope and complexity of fraud challenges that these businesses, particularly in Africa, must contend with.
“Orca is building a fraud prevention solution that is tailored for the African market. The market needs a bespoke solution, rather than a retrofitted suite of tools that was built for global markets where the finance and regulatory infrastructure is totally different,” he said.
“Whilst our core focus at Norrsken22 is on supporting growth stage businesses, we selectively back exceptional founders at an earlier stage building in key verticals, and we believe Orca is in a great position to become the leading fraud tooling for African businesses.”
