Stripe snaps up Bouncer in latest acquisition move

17 May 2021

Image: © Ryan/Stock.adobe.com

The Californian start-up’s tech for verifying legitimate transactions will be integrated into Stripe’s Radar service.

Stripe has continued its streak of acquisitions, this time scooping up fraud detection start-up Bouncer.

California-based Bouncer develops a platform for automating the authentication process for card transactions to reduce fraud and was backed by Y Combinator. No financial terms for the deal were disclosed.

Bouncer will be integrated into Radar, Stripe’s fraud prevention technology that uses machine learning to weed out fraudulent transactions in the company’s payment processing services. Bouncer said that its solutions can perform a risk assessment in less than a second.

Bouncer’s tech will be used by Radar to identify high-risk transactions and to ensure the user is who they say they are. It said the tech will also help in reducing false positives.

Simon Arscott, the business lead for Stripe Radar, said that the integration will help in reducing the number of legitimate customers being blocked and delayed in carrying out a purchase.

“With the addition of advanced card scanning capabilities, Stripe Radar will be able block more fraud and further increase revenue for millions of businesses around the world who rely on Stripe,” he said.

According to Stripe, Radar has blocked more than $1bn in fraudulent transactions.

“The same signals that Radar learns from will make Bouncer more effective, and Bouncer will, in turn, make Radar more effective,” the start-up’s CEO Will Megson added.

The Bouncer acquisition is Stripe’s latest start-up purchase as it seeks to build out its vast payments business even further. It has acquired nearly a dozen companies in recent years but since closing its $600m funding round in March, the company has quickened the pace of acquisitions and investments, recently announcing plans to purchase TaxJar.

Stripe has also been expanding its various services into more geographies of late, bringing its card issuing to Europe and opening an office in Dubai to serve the Middle East.

Jonathan Keane is a freelance business and technology journalist based in Dublin

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