AI Anti-Fraud Startup Apate.ai Raises $8.15M Seed Round

Australian AI anti-fraud startup Apate.ai has raised $8.15 million in a seed round led by Lobby Capital, with participation from OIF Ventures, Investible, Concept Ventures and Baobab Ventures. The company said total funding has reached nearly $10 million.

Founded in 2024 by Macquarie University cybersecurity professor Dali Kaafar, Apate.ai uses LLM-driven AI bots to impersonate ordinary people and keep scammers on the line, while extracting payment account details, wallet addresses and phishing domains. According to the company, its AI has completed roughly 2.5 million conversations, consuming time equivalent to 17 years from scammers. The platform operates about 350,000 AI bots and has collected more than 250,000 real-time intelligence records on fraudsters.

Customers include Commonwealth Bank of Australia, telecom operator TPG Telecom, and other utility, telecom and government organizations. Apate co-founder Brad Joffe said TPG has transferred nearly 590,000 calls to Apate's AI agents, while Commonwealth Bank reported a 76% drop in publicly reported scam losses.

Apate.ai plans to expand overseas, opening a London office in the first quarter of 2027 to serve European clients and strengthening its US operations. Co-founder Peter Eckermann will move to the US to lead North American expansion. The company, which keeps a team of about 20, completed its reincorporation in Delaware on August 25, 2026.