This Startup Catches Fraud at Scale
In this episode of Founder Firesides, YC Managing Partner Jared Friedman talks to Karine Mellata, co-founder of Variance (W23), who is coming out of stealth and announcing their $21 million Series A. Variance builds purpose-built AI agents for risk and compliance — automating fraud detection, content review, and identity verification for Fortune 500 companies and platforms like GoFundMe. They discuss why Variance built in the shadows for three years, detecting state-sponsored fraud rings, and the accident that nearly ended the company.
https://www.variance.com/
00:00 – $21M Raise: Coming Out…
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Chapters (16)
$21M Raise: Coming Out of Stealth
0:49
The AI That Keeps the Internet Safe
1:28
Why They Stayed Secret for 3 Years
2:26
You’ve Used This Without Knowing It
2:57
How GoFundMe Stops Scams
3:59
How Scammers Use Big News Events
5:50
Checking IDs and Businesses Online
7:44
How the AI Agents Work
9:28
The Hardest Problem: Bad Data
12:07
Why This Only Works Now
14:22
Catching Organized Fraud Groups
16:26
Tiny Team, Huge Output
20:18
How They Met at Apple
22:24
Getting Their First Customer
24:57
Recovering from Getting Hit by a Truck
29:36
Sticking to One Big Idea
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