Melbourne-based startup Frankie On, which provides an API platform for identity verification and fraud detection, has raised $23 million (about $15.4 million) in a Series A+ round. USD). FrankieOne This is the largest VC funding raised by Australian regtech to date.
The funding also included a group of returning investors, including lead backers Airtree Ventures and Greycroft, and participants Reinventure (the venture arm of financial services company Westpac), Tidal Ventures and Apex Capital Partners, all existing investors. New strategic investors include Binance Labs and Kraken Ventures.
In the year Founded in 2019 by serial fintech entrepreneurs Simon Costello and Aaron Chipper, Frankie ON connects banking, fintech, crypto and gaming companies to hundreds of data sources and works with 170 financial institutions worldwide. The startup says it has seen 4x revenue growth in the last 12 months and its customers now include Westpac, Shopify, Postpaid, Binance, Zipmex and Pointsbet. The team doubled in size last year, and opened a new office in San Francisco.
FrankieOne grew out of a neobank venture founded by a chipper named Frankie, Costello told TechCrunch. Costello and Chipper Frankie wanted to differentiate themselves from the rest of the industry with a better onboarding experience, using the most advanced identity and fraud prevention tools available, but this process proved to be unnecessarily complex requiring multiple integrations and it was clear we needed it. Let’s create our own risk-based onboarding,” Costello said. Other fintech companies have found themselves facing similar problems.
FrankieOne founders Simon Costello and Aaron Chipper
As a result, Frankie On was created to streamline processes around well-being and compliance. It now provides a single API that connects third-party providers to more than 350 data sources in 48 countries.
Costello explained that most fintechs, banks and crypto companies deal with a single vendor for their identity needs, dealing with deficiencies in match rates, coverage or scalability. This means that their technology stack also needs constant maintenance.
FrankieOne solves this problem by connecting to hundreds of data sources from multiple vendor partners, meaning customers don’t need to rely on a single vendor. Its connected API providers include established financial services companies like Equifax, Experian and Socure and fast-growing startups like Sardine AI.
“What sets FrankieOne apart is that it allows customers to switch vendors, create flexible workflows, add more fraud signals and add new markets, enabling our customers to quickly respond to changing regulations and evolving business requirements without incurring any additional workload,” said Costello.
FrankieOne’s clients, often mid- to large-sized organizations in highly regulated industries, must adapt to complex policies that change frequently, he added.
As an example of how FrankieOne has been used by its customers, Costello points to sports betting app Pointsbet, which previously used a single provider for customer onboarding, but hosts a large number of prospective users who cannot be verified in real time. This resulted in customer dropouts or additional manual work to verify their details. Since working with FrankieOne, Pointsbet has been able to increase footfall by 14%.
As Westpac began to digitize more of their financial services, they still used separate legacy systems, and as a result needed to increase their throughput to reduce churn. They have integrated FrankieOne’s platform for KYC (Know Your Customer) on the new BaaS (Bank-as-a-Service). This increased pass rates significantly, so the firm added Frankio to the team.
The latest funding will allow Francio to rapidly scale and expand across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Costello says it will allow Frankie On to invest heavily in suppliers, data sources and fraud capabilities, allowing it to grow its customer base.
