Sydney AI Startup Apate.AI Raises $8.15 Million To Make Scammers Waste Time On AI Victims

A scammer can spend hours trying to win the trust of a victim who was never real.

That is the premise behind Apate.AI, an Australian cyber intelligence startup using AI-generated voice and text agents to pose as potential victims, keep fraudsters engaged and collect information about how their networks operate.

The Sydney-born company has now raised US$11.4 million in new seed funding, or about A$15.9 million, as it prepares to take the technology into more international markets.

Apate.AI Raises $11.4 Million To Take On Global Scam Networks

The funding round was led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Lobby Capital, with OIF Ventures, Investible, Concept Ventures and Baobab Ventures also taking part.

The new investment follows a US$2.5 million seed round led by OIF Ventures a year earlier.

Apate.AI has incorporated as a Delaware company as part of its expansion plans and will open a London office in the next quarter to serve European clients.

Cofounder and chief product officer Peter Eckermann will relocate to the US to lead the company's North American expansion, while its technology and research teams will continue operating from Sydney.

The company already has operations across Australia, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Apate.AI’s Co-founders: (L-R) Chief Product Officer Pete Eckermann, Chief Commercial Officer Brad Joffe and Chief Executive Dali Kaafar

How AI Agents Are Turning Scammers Into Sources Of Intelligence

Rather than waiting for a scam to succeed before investigating it, Apate.AI sends conversational AI agents directly into interactions with fraudsters.

The agents are designed to behave like genuine victims through voice and text conversations, allowing them to keep scammers occupied while gathering information about their methods, targets and networks.

Some interactions have lasted for as long as two hours.

The approach is designed to turn the time and effort normally spent by scammers on potential victims against them, while producing intelligence that banks, telecommunications companies and governments can use to disrupt fraud.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia has already conducted more than 2.5 million autonomous conversations with threat actors using the platform.

Those interactions have produced more than 250,000 intelligence artefacts, which are then fed into customer disruption pipelines.

Banks Are Using The Conversations To Disrupt Fraud

Apate.AI cofounder and chief executive Professor Dali Kaafar said the system gives organisations a way to engage with fraudsters directly instead of simply reacting after victims have been targeted.

“Our agents engage scammers directly, waste their time and money, and turn their tactics into intelligence that protects the people they target. This round takes that to institutions and their customers worldwide.”

The company argues that traditional anti-fraud systems often focus on identifying or blocking suspicious activity after a scam has already begun.

Its platform instead seeks to gather information from the people running the scams, with the resulting intelligence used to build countermeasures and disrupt wider operations.

A $1.4 Trillion Scam Economy Creates A Large Target

Apate.AI is expanding into a market where fraud has become increasingly organised and automated.

Global scams are estimated to cost about $1.4 trillion a year, while losses in Australia alone are around A$2 billion, or roughly $1.4 billion.

The problem is also widespread across Africa and South East Asia, where organised fraud operations have developed into large-scale businesses targeting people through phone calls, messaging platforms, social engineering and other methods.

Apate.AI already operates in Africa, giving it an existing base as it looks to expand its intelligence-led approach across regions facing significant levels of fraud.

Investors See AI Making Scam Networks Harder To Stop

Lobby Capital partner Buddy Arnheim said fraudsters were becoming more sophisticated as they adopted AI, while the number of people being targeted and the financial losses were also increasing.

“Scammers are not only increasingly sophisticated, they’re proliferating exponentially as they embrace AI. As a result, the number of victims and the related losses are accelerating. The proprietary and pioneering Apate solution is combatting this with a proactive approach that is showing unparalleled results, and they are just getting started.”

The latest funding will support international expansion and further development of Apate.AI's platform as the company moves from its Australian base towards a broader global operation.

Apate.AI is betting on a simple strategy: keep fraudsters talking, uncover how they operate and turn those conversations into intelligence before they can reach real victims.