Takeover begets Mangopay takeover in biometric fraud prevention sector

Payment infrastructure vendor Mangopay is buying Nethone, a behavioral biometric fraud detection and prevention software firm.

The buyout, for which no specifics were given, is expected to speed the development of anti-fraud tools for marketplaces.

Mangopay itself was purchased in the spring by private equity firm Advent International. Advent is majority owner of the startup. Its clients have included marketplaces including Vinted, Malt, Wallapop and Chrono24. It has also been rumored as a possible buyer for Idemia.

The Nethone buyout was a consideration for Advent last spring. Six months before that, Nethone raised $6.7 million to fight account takeovers.

Platform-specific Mangopay sees a lot of business in dissuading fraudsters from targeting marketplaces, which can be attractive target for criminals. In fact, the company says two-thirds of e-commerce occurs in marketplaces. The company integrated Onfido’s selfie biometrics for KYC checks last year.

Nethone boasts proprietary machine learning tools and hardware analyze many factors, including behavioral biometrics.

Executives say a single integration of its tools prevent more than 95 percent of would-be account takeovers.

They claim that their products can increase conversion rates by 9 percent while raising approval rates by 26 precent and cutting manual review traffic by 60 percent using “well-explained recommendations.”

The marketing goal, according to Mangopay’s CEO, Romain Mazeries, is to give his customers “a deep understanding of its users in real time throughout their entire customer journey.” That is the only way to cut successful fraud attacks.

Nethone CEO and Co-founder Hubert Rachwalski von Rejchwald will continue working with clients and will join Mangopay’s executive committee.

Article Topics

Advent International  |  behavioral biometrics  |  biometrics  |  fraud prevention  |  Nethone