Forter, Fraud Prevention Technology Firm, Raises $50M

PRESS RELEASE

NEW YORK, September 26, 2018 -- Forter, the leading e-commerce fraud prevention company that protects merchants during each stage of the customer lifecycle in real-time, announced today that they’ve secured $50 million in Series D financing. The funding round was led by March Capital Partners with participation from Salesforce Ventures and previous investors Sequoia Capital, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Scale Venture Partners.

With 2,300 breaches exposing 2.6B personal records reported in the first half of 2018, bad actors have access to more consumer information to use for identity theft and e-commerce fraud than ever before. In fact, the most recent Fraud Attack Index revealed a 53% spike in account takeover in the last year. With the rate of online fraud attacks reaching an alarming new normal, sophisticated fraud prevention tools that make decisions in real-time without impacting the customer experience have become critical for online retailers.

E-commerce merchants find that by joining the Forter Merchant Network they are fighting fraud together. Forter not only removes the burden of fraud but also improves the user experience for their customers, reduces friction and false declines, and drives revenue creation. 

The company leverages sophisticated machine learning technologies, enhanced by human domain expertise, Israeli military intelligence and continuous research, to create a robust and ever-expanding identity database, already covering more than 180M U.S. shoppers. Today, with Forter’s powerful data network effect, over 95% of transactions processed by the company are completed by consumers who interacted with the network before. This growing network continues to power a coalition of retailers against fraud. This includes Fortune 500 retailers, leading travel companies and fast-growing digital disruptors throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

“Fraud is an ever shifting problem. To get ahead of the curve and support our retail customers in whichever new experiences they want to offer consumers, we plan to double our already massive investment in research and development, expand our global coverage and facilitate further collaboration in the e-commerce and payments ecosystem,” said Michael Reitblat, Forter Co-founder and CEO.

“We’ve been seeing a major trend of offline commerce shifting online and the Forter team has built a solution to detect and prevent fraud across the payments ecosystem with the advantage of next-generation technology that leverages machine learning,” said Jamie Montgomery, Managing Director, March Capital Partners. “We’re excited to be involved with a company on the forefront of their industry and to watch Forter evolve as the fraud landscape grows more complex.”

"We had a significant fraud problem and Forter was up for the challenge,” said James Washington, Director of Product Management - Digital at TGI Fridays. “They partnered with our team to understand our customers and business needs and delivered beyond our expectations. Our restaurant operators can now accept online orders and mobile check payments with confidence."

The funding round is Forter’s largest to date, bringing the company’s total financing to $100 million since its founding in 2013. This achievement is the latest in a series of corporate milestones for Forter and dually affirms its clear leadership in the fraud prevention space. Forter already processes more than $50B of transactions annually and is the only solution to provide an end-to-end identity management platform for risk-based decisions. In the past 12 months alone, Forter has tripled its customer base, broadened its product offering and was recognized on the Forbes Fintech 50 list and Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list. The company also recently announced its expansion into Europe with the opening of its first UK office in London and is continuing to grow its management team and client base in the region.