Featurespace Raises £25 Million to Drive International Growth

Featurespace, a leading provider of Adaptive Behavioural Analytics for fraud detection and risk management, has raised £25 million ($32.3 million) from a funding round led by Insight Venture Partners, a New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm focused on high-growth investments in the technology sector, and MissionOG, a US-based venture capital firm with significant operational and investment experience across the financial services and payments industries.

The round also included further funding from existing investors including IP Group plc, Highland Europe, TTV Capital, Robert Sansom and Invoke Capital.

The funding will be used to support Featurespace’s international expansion and continued development of the company’s software capabilities.

The investment will also support the continued distribution of Featurespace’s real-time ARIC™ platform, which uses Adaptive Behavioural Analytics to detect anomalies in individual behaviour for fraud and risk management.

Martina King, Featurespace CEO, commented:

"We have made tremendous progress over the last 15 months since our last fund raising – and this fund raise is the largest to date. The additional funds will enable us to continue rapidly growing the business internationally by focusing on our products, our people and our customers."

“Working very closely with our customers, we have developed a market-leading product to meet their fraud detection and prevention requirements. We have also significantly strengthened our senior management team and operational infrastructure, and opened an office in Atlanta, Georgia."

“We have also grown our financial services customer base and now are working with 17 banks across continental Europe, the UK, US and Latin America. Equally important, we have become the technology partner of choice to a number of payment processors and merchant acquirers that have embedded our real-time fraud prevention technology in their anti-fraud solutions."

Jeff Horing, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners, commented:

“We have been following Featurespace’s growth for over two years. Following extensive customer and product due diligence, we were delighted with market feedback around the product and team. We welcome Featurespace into our portfolio and look forward to helping the company drive international growth.”

Gene Lockhart, Chairman and Managing Partner at MissionOG, commented:

“Martina King, David Excell and team have built a dynamic culture that has led to a well-defined and successful market focus. Their efforts are evidenced by strong sales momentum with notable clients in various segments, including multinational banks, payments companies, issuer processors and merchant acquirers."

“We’re excited to partner with Featurespace and introduce our network and platform to continue to drive value and growth."

Contacts

About Featurespace

Headquartered in the U.K. and U.S. and with offices in Cambridge, London and Atlanta, Featurespace™ is the world-leader in fraud prevention and creator of the ARIC™ platform, a real-time AI machine learning software that risk scores transactions and other events in more than 180 countries.

Featurespace was created out of Cambridge University’s Engineering Department, co-founded by world-renowned experts in applied statistics, the late Professor Bill Fitzgerald and Dave Excell, Featurespace CTO.

The ARIC platform combines adaptive behavioral analytics and anomaly detection to automatically identify risk and catch new attacks as they happen. The increased accuracy of understanding behavior strikes the balance between improving fraud detection and operational efficiencies, while also reducing the number of genuine transactions that would be incorrectly declined due to traditional rules by as much as 70 percent. www.featurespace.com

About Insight Venture Partners

Insight Venture Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight currently has over $20 billion of assets under management and has cumulatively invested in more than 300 companies worldwide. Our mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on growth expertise to foster long-term success. Across our people and our portfolio, we encourage a culture around a core belief: growth equals opportunity. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit www.insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter @insightpartners.

About MissionOG

MissionOG partners with high-growth businesses that have proven models in segments where we have had success as operators and investors, including financial services and payments, data platforms, and software. We apply our experience and capabilities to a group of highly skilled and passionate entrepreneurs whose businesses are on the cusp of exponential growth. The firm is managed by operators and investors who have effectively built early to growth stage businesses and guided them through successful exits. MissionOG is headquartered in Philadelphia. For more information visit http://www.missionog.com.

About IP Group

IP Group is a leading intellectual property commercialisation company which focuses on evolving great ideas, mainly from its partner universities, into world-changing businesses. The Group has pioneered a unique approach to developing these ideas and the resulting businesses by providing access to business building expertise, capital (through its 100%-owned FCA-authorised subsidiaries IP Capital and Parkwalk Advisors), networks, recruitment and business support. IP Group has a strong track record of success and its portfolio comprises holdings in early-stage to mature businesses across life sciences and technology. IP Group is listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange under the code IPO. Group holdings in portfolio companies reflect the undiluted beneficial equity interest excluding debt, unless otherwise explicitly stated.

For more information, please visit our website at www.ipgroupplc.com.

About Highland Europe

Highland Europe invests in exceptional growth-stage software and internet companies. Active in Europe since 2003 as Highland Capital Partners and formally launched in 2012, Highland Europe has raised over €1 billion and has invested in companies such as Adjust, Bitmovin, ContentSquare, GetYourGuide, Huel, Malwarebytes, MatchesFashion, NewVoiceMedia, Nexthink, Smartly.io and WeTransfer. Highland’s collective history of investments across the US, Europe and China includes 46 IPOs and 19 billion-dollar plus companies.

To learn more, visit: www.highlandeurope.com.

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Contact information

U.K.
Samantha Arnold
+44 (0) 1223 345940
samantha.arnold@featurespace.com

U.S.
Michael Touchton
+1 404 649 0108
michael.touchton@featurespace.com