Today we’re excited to share our Series A investment in Simility, the most advanced online fraud-detection platform on the market today.

We first met Simility CEO and co-founder, Rahul Pangam and his co-founders, Uttam and Kedar, when we led their seed investment in 2015. Even before we knew much about the company, we had already heard several strong endorsements of the team from various colleagues of the founders. Their nearly decade-long experience building Google’s market-leading ad fraud product was so extensive that it was hard to find a Google employee who didn’t know at least one of the founders through their work. Once we spent time with them, we realized that Simility’s approach and vision had a true shot at creating a breakout company in their market.

Simility CEO and co-founder, Rahul Pangam

Fraud is a dramatically growing and increasingly sophisticated threat. Over 65% of companies with revenue above $1 billion suffered some form of payment fraud last year. Unlike most online fraud platforms on the market, which shroud their algorithms in a black box, Simility is completely open and extensible. Its solution also addresses the “Catch-22” most companies today face — specifically, almost every other fraud product forces the customer to choose between maximizing security and negatively impacting customer experience. Through a mix of data, machine learning and first-hand experience, Simility doesn’t force the customer to have to choose between the two. The platform’s open architecture allows customers to tune the platform specifically to their business needs without compromising customer experience.

Simility co-founders, Kedar Semant, CTO and Uttam Phalnikar, CEA

Lastly, we’re also very excited to welcome PayPal as a new investor in Simility. Accel is proud of the close relationship it has built with PayPal since the Braintree/Venmo acquisition, and we view PayPal’s strategic involvement as yet another high endorsement of Simility’s team, vision and product. You can read more on today’s news via Simility’s post here.

Ryan Sweeney & Dinesh Katiyar