Q&A with AI fraud detector Lynx

‍Hi Dan! What's your elevator pitch?  

My name is Dan Dica and I’m the CEO of Lynx.  We've dedicated over two decades to perfecting AI software for fraud and financial crime prevention. Partnering closely with leading financial institutions, our solutions enable financial institutions to protect transactions seamlessly and compliantly at scale. 

We serve leading financial institutions across Europe, the UK, the US and Latin America, including Cielo, the largest credit and debit card operator in Brazil, and Banco Santander. With models trained and validated on the 58 billion transactions by 300 million bank customers per year that Lynx protects, we offer fraud prevention for cards, digital banking, eCommerce, telephony, branches and ATMs. 

Why does the market need it? 

The volume and sophistication of financial crimes have increased significantly with the growth of digital transactions and online banking. AI algorithms can detect patterns and anomalies much faster and more accurately than humans, given the huge amounts of customer data that must be analysed. 

New types of financial crimes and fraud are always emerging, enabled by new technologies. AI systems can adapt in real-time to detect new attack vectors and modes of operation. This is where Lynx fits into the equation. 

Our game-changer is the 'Daily Adaptive Model,' a proprietary capability that learns and refines risk scores daily. At Lynx, we're not just detecting fraud; we're anticipating it. With our technological expertise extending into AML, we're reshaping how organisations combat financial crime. We can process enterprise-level transaction volumes and generate fraud scores three times more accurately than current industry standards in under 15 milliseconds. 

Where is the business today?  

For over 20 years, we have been leveraging deep academic expertise and exceptional engineering to deliver the best-in-class results for our customers. In November 2023, we announced a €17 million (c.£15 million) Series A funding round led by Forgepoint Capital, a leading venture capital firm focused on cybersecurity and digital infrastructure software. 

We’re extremely proud to serve 300 million bank customers and protect an astonishing 58 billion transactions for our loyal customers – processing more than 1,500 transactions per second. 

What's your biggest strength? 

We have made very careful product development decisions, all to enable our financial institution customers to address any type of fraud they face. That means we can ingest any data, generate any feature, and provide the best machine-learning models for identifying fraud. We have state-of-the-art in-memory databases, algorithms, and low-level code in our solution, which makes it lightning-fast while keeping costs down. 

We are experts in AI financial security, leveraging deep research and development (R&D), collaborations, and its continuously adaptive software engine to keep financial crime detection rates exceptionally high for clients.  

Our innovative ‘Daily Adaptive Model’ sets our solution apart in the market. This unique capability enables continuous learning of new behaviours and daily model retraining, ensuring the AI remains effective against evolving fraud tactics. On top of this, our AML modules - transaction screening, customer screening and case management - optimise the way organisations detect and manage financial crime. We apply AI-led, human-centred technologies to detect illicit activities leveraging supervised and unsupervised AI, automate repetitive, data-driven investigation processes, and optimise operations by automating case management activities. 

What is the secret to making the business work? 

We pride ourselves on our accurate models. The algorithm needs to have extremely high precision and recall rates in detecting fraud, money laundering, and other crimes, and this is supported by high-quality training data and clean data pipelines. 

Fraud-prevention AI models need to properly balance precision and recall - catching as much fraudulent activity as possible while minimising false alerts that wrongly flag legitimate transactions. Striking the optimal balance is imperative, and our daily adaptive model is key to achieving this.  

The ‘secret’ lies within balancing the advantages of our daily adaptive model with appropriate governance – it is one of our key strengths. It’s imperative that we, and other organisations fighting financial crime, continuously update and retrain AI models, especially as financial crime patterns evolve at the speed of light.  

What funding do you have? Is it enough? 

In November we announced Series A funding from the fantastic Forgepoint Capital. We have strong ambitions for 2024 and believe this is the right partnership to take Lynx to the next level. 

The investment will fund our global expansion and further the development of our integrated fraud, AML and cybersecurity platform that will provide 360-degree visibility of risk and generate significant operational efficiencies, informed by market and regulatory drivers, client needs and technological advancements. ‍

Tell us about the business model 

We operate a SaaS subscription business model, providing scalable AI-based software solutions to customers across the globe. We focus on a very clearly defined target market, with a robust commercial strategy that allows us to create significant value for our customers while staying competitive.

Additionally, we prioritise our commitment to deliver outstanding customer services and support, data security and continuous innovation, which ensures competitiveness and high customer retention.‍

What were you doing before? 

Before Lynx, I led the global revenue growth strategy at OneSpan Inc., a Nasdaq-listed company specialising in intelligent authentication software. The transformational journey at OneSpan over 15 years helped me build great teams across the globe, create material value for the company and enhance my skills in strategic leadership and organisational development.

What is the future vision? 

Our vision at Lynx is to design a comprehensive platform that unites the fight against fraud, AML challenges, and cybersecurity threats under one roof. Backed by a formidable team and strategic investors like Forgepoint Capital, we're poised to redefine and revolutionise the approach to secure financial transactions on a global stage.