South African startup Orca Fraud has closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round of US$550,000 which it plans to use to protect emerging markets from fraud.
Founded in January by Thalia Pillay and Carla Wilby, Orca empowers fraud analysts and compliance officers at banks and fintechs with the tools they need to effectively combat various types of fraud.
The startup has raised a US$550,000 pre-seed round, led by Norrsken22, with participation from First Circle Capital, Musha Ventures and Kara Ventures, as well as several strategic business angels and family and friends.
Using the funding raised, Orca plans to expand its team and build, validate and iterate on its fraud and compliance products with customers in South Africa.
“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.
Nivesh Pather of Norrsken22 said his firm had seen the quantum and complexity of fraud challenges faced by emerging market banks and fintechs, specifically in Africa, as they scale to provide increased financial inclusion.
“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.”
