Forter raises $125 mn in Series E, bringing valuation to more than $1.3bn

By Pavithra R

Forter, a leading e-commerce fraud prevention provider, has announced that the company has raised $125 mn in Series E funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Felix Capital and Itai Tsiddon. The round propels its valuation to over $1.3 bn.

Founded in 2013, Forter is a fraud prevention company whose real-time, fully automated fraud prevention platform is trusted by numerous merchants in diverse verticals including Boohoo, Sephora, ASOS, Hugo Boss and Adobe. The company’s global network provides a comprehensive view of both fraudulent & legitimate customer behaviors, allowing accurate fraud decisions with enhanced customer experience.

The investment round saw participation from Sequoia Capital, NewView Capital, Scale Venture Partners, March Capital Partners and Commerce Ventures. The company is planning to use the finance to accelerate its vision of establishing an ecosystem of trust across online merchants, payment providers and banks to block fraud and give consumers the confidence and convenience to shop freely. Forter will continue to fuel its suite of solutions and global data network, which has doubled in size in the past year to exceed $200 bn in annual online transactions protecting over 800 mn shoppers.

“We set out to create a global coalition of merchants, banks and payment providers that fight fraud together. We continue on our mission to expand the online network of trust and will continue investing in our platform in collaboration with our customers and partners. This year we have doubled our team across eight global offices, doubled our revenue and enjoyed our first cash flow positive quarter. The market traction we have experienced allows us to invest even more into our platform and drive more significant impact for our customers and partners. We will remain an independent company as we continue to grow our footprint across the commerce ecosystem,” said Michael Reitblat, CEO and Co-founder, Forter. 

Forter has driven product innovation and stretched its partner ecosystem to protect merchants and consumers across the entire e-commerce experience, including:

• Loyalty Program Fraud Protection that protects against account takeover (ATO), transactional fraud, policy abuse and new account fraud; Smart Routing, which provides automated payment routing decisions to eliminate false declines and reduce lost revenue by 50% and Returns Abuse Protection to identify and stop returns abusers.
• Fraud Prevention Platform for Payment Service Providers (PSPs), enabling PSPs including FIS Worldpay, Global Payments, FreedomPay, and Checkout.com to provide effective fraud prevention to their merchants.
• Partnerships and integrations with leaders in the e-commerce ecosystem including Mastercard, Salesforce, Adobe and SAP to increase approval rates and eliminate fraud throughout the consumer journey.

“Companies that can allow global organizations to safely embrace and accelerate their digital transformation and increase the lifetime value of their online consumers are invaluable as e-commerce continues to climb. Forter has turned fraud prevention into a business enabler by uniting the entire digital economy ecosystem to fight fraud together and let people shop safely,” said Elliott Robinson, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.