25. Ravelin

Founders: Martin Sweeney, Nick Lally, Mairtin O’Riada, Leonard Austin and Stephen Whitworth
Founded: October 2014 (Launched February 2016)
Website: www.ravelin.com

One of our top new businesses of 2016, Ravelin’s entry in the prestigious Startups 100 2017 index was a sure bet, especially in light of the recent cyber attacks and the work it does to stop fraudsters before it’s too late.

A fraud detection and prevention platform, Ravelin utilises artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to help online businesses protect their margins.

Launched in February 2016 by Martin Sweeney, Nick Lally, Mairtin O’Riada, Leonard Austin and Stephen Whitworth, the co-founders came up with the idea for Ravelin based on past experience. The five had all been employees of taxi app Hailo, a prior Startups 100 company, when they encountered a fraud problem.

While looking for a solution that would cater to Hailo’s on-demand business model, the team realised that no such service existed so they decided to quit the company and build their own.

Integrating visitors, registration, ordering, location and payment data from its clients in real time before using machine learning, Ravelin is able to decipher whether a website visitor is genuine or a fraudster attempting to extract data or finance.

The London-based start-up claims this approach has helped its users reduce charge-backs to 0.1% of sales, as well as increasing conversion and reducing the need for manual reviewing.

Only charging for every successful transaction, one-year old Ravelin has already processed over 10 million requests per month across its 20 clients which includes the likes of Deliveroo, Time Out, Quiqup and Verifone.

With 32 employees and counting, the start-up has raised approximately £5m across three funding rounds. We have to agree with investors; Ravelin is a company that’s easy to back as one of the UK’s best new businesses.