Axa Venture Partners, the venture capital firm affiliated with insurance group Axa, co-led a $123m series A round for NS8, a US-based developer of online fraud prevention technology, yesterday.
The round was co-led by VC firm Lightspeed Venture Partners and it increased the company’s overall funding to approximately $158m since it was founded in 2016.
NS8’s fraud prevention software combines behavioural analytics and real-time identity scoring with a global monitoring system. The company, which has increased headcount from 50 to 200 in the past year, will use the cash to fund product development and international growth.
Alex Scherbakovsky, general partner at Axa Venture Partners, has joined NS8’s board of directors in conjunction with the round. He said: “NS8 has built a market-leading fraud detection and prevention platform combining advanced data analytics with real-time scoring.
“NS8’s rapid growth is a testament to the strength of the company’s product and the value NS8 delivers to its customers. We are excited to partner with Adam and the NS8 team to scale the business globally.”
Arbor Ventures, TDF Ventures and Hanna Ventures provided $7m in seed capital for NS8 in 2017, following earlier investment by Bloomberg Beta, a vehicle for media group Bloomberg, as well as TDF Ventures, Blu Venture Investors, NextGen Venture Partners, Mach 37, Hillcrest Venture Partners and various individuals.
The company subsequently added $26m in a March 2019 mezzanine round co-led by Edison Partners, Sorenson Ventures and Lytical Ventures that also featured TDF Ventures and Hanna Ventures.
