SEON opens new office to tackle the North American fraud prevention market.
The fraud fighters take first expansion step, following Series A investment, to help mend pain points in the market that block access to fraud prevention services for businesses of all sizes.
SEON, the fraud fighters, today announces the launch of its new office in Austin, Texas. The move marks the company’s expansion in the North American market, as it adds strategic new hires to better serve its customers and continues its mission to remove the barriers to fraud prevention around the globe.
Progress in the North American market is the next phase of SEON’s growth plan. In its initial phase, the company experienced great success in the European, Latin America (LatAm) and Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets. Now, it is setting up a base in the US to further expand in the noisier and more competitive market that is North America.
Prior to the opening of the office, US-based companies accounted for approximately 10% of SEON’s revenue. With 56% of US companies experiencing fraud in the past two years, the region will play an essential part in the company’s growth plans, as it aims to have it account for as much as 50% of its revenue in the next 3-5 years. The move comes following the announcement of the SEON’s latest series A funding round, in which it secured €10 million (USD 12 million). As Hungary’s largest Series A funding round, the investment is spurring on SEON’s growth, bolstering its global expansion and helping it provide services to customers in different markets around the world.
With three in ten US companies recognising that their most disruptive fraud highlighted a need for new technologies, SEON aims to incorporate its solution in these different markets to help mend a number of pain points that have been hindering the fraud prevention industry and preventing businesses from accessing the fraud mitigation services they need. These include long integration times, lengthy contracts, packages that are only suitable for certain sized businesses and an overreliance on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for decisioning.
By contrast, SEON’s solution has monthly rolling contracts, a free trial period and can be integrated within minutes. Additionally, its solution is suitable for businesses regardless of their size and structure and works on a supervised learning basis, meaning that fraud managers can understand why the solution’s logic and rules have made certain decisions. As such, they have the information and data necessary to make effective and efficient fraud prevention decisions.
Talking about the issues it will be addressing in the North American Market, SEON’s Chief Commercial Officer, Jimmy Fong, said:
“In the past, fraud managers have been faced with difficult decisions when it comes to choosing a fraud prevention partner. Not only are they locked into lengthy contracts once signed up, making it difficult to swap providers if needed, but the industry has been bound by outdated legacy systems that have meant that integration times can take weeks.”
Over the past year, SEON has taken note of how these issues have been even more problematic during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Jimmy added:
“With many businesses rapidly moving into the online space to survive lockdowns and social distancing, they have needed quick access to fraud prevention solutions, highlighting the demand for rapid integration times. At the same time, online fraud has risen in line with online activity, so businesses must be more prepared for fraud to take place than ever. Therefore, by expanding our operations to North America, we’ll be ensuring that companies have access to the solutions they need to operate in the online space and in turn, better serve our customers. We’ll be ripping up the rule book to give the industry and its customers new options when it comes to fraud prevention.”
