BlockFrauds, a Fardoe Software business, one of the 6 finalists of BlockStart’s 3rd acceleration programme Pilot stage, has joined R3’s Venture Development programme, the start-up growth and business development program of the enterprise technology and services firm, R3.
R3’s Venture Development programme has helped many successful start-ups that are building applications on Corda, known as CorDapps, to market. The program supports early-stage companies building on Corda with business development content, technical support, design workshops and community events. More than 300 high quality mentors, Venture Capital firms and Service providers contribute to the program globally.
BlockFrauds helps insurers detect fraud more efficiently and effectively in three steps. First, it helps them create an ecosystem of their chosen data and tools, so they can more easily spot issues. Then it applies a range of cutting-edge technologies, including AI and its proprietary algorithms, in advanced speech and image analytics focused on fraud detection. The processing also anonymises the data which enables the final step: seamless, compliant sharing of the intelligence on a private blockchain with central federated learning that benefits from this wider information, giving a greater chance of spotting fraud flags as well as double-dip claims. Claims Handlers receive a Claim Credibility Score to help them prioritise their reviews, and all network participants benefit from the updated algorithm.
Roanna Doe, co-founder and CEO of Fardoe, said:
“Insurance fraud is a massive issue, meaning higher premiums for customers that also mean billions of vulnerable people cannot afford them. Insurers are quite rightly subject to tight restrictions on sharing information that might nevertheless help tackle this issue. Our anonymised, compliant sharing creates a blockchain-based Fraud Bureau, with a single immutable source of truth of the speech and image intelligence that can really help to spot double-dips, new trends, known fraudsters, or worrying characteristics.”
Soadad Farhan, co-founder and CTO of Fardoe, said:
“I recognised the need for this solution during my time as CTO and Head of Innovation at Hiscox. Compliance is key, and there is ongoing pressure to streamline workflows. Our automated processing, including central federated learning, helps meet both of these requirements, and use of a private permissioned blockchain ensures only trusted participants can contribute intelligence and train the model. Corda is the leading enterprise blockchain and thus an obvious choice, and we have had valuable support from the R3 community.”
BlockFrauds – as Fardoe Software – was runner-up in R3’s Corda Insurtech Challenge 2020: Fraud Detection, sponsored by B3i which is a major Europe-based insurance industry blockchain consortium. BlockFrauds is also one of our 6 companies selected for the BlockStart’s final pilot stage. On 24 February 2022, BlockFrauds will present this pilot in our final Demo Day event, “From Blockchain to Web3”.
Fardoe also has the support of two investors – Outlier Ventures and CV VC – and plans a third raise in early summer 2022 to support its initial scale-up.
David Vatchev , Global Head of Venture Development at R3, commented:
“R3’s ecosystem is one of the largest in the world with more than 400 institutions and over 400 startups actively engaged in building on our technology platforms. It is rapidly growing and our Venture Development program ensures startups derive the greatest value from this network to shorten their time-to-market and accelerate go-to-market strategy. We are pleased to be working with Blockfrauds to support their growth journey with our network of mentors, investors and enterprise customers.”
Joao Fernandes, our Project Coordinator & Investor at Bright Pixel, commented:
“It has been an absolute pleasure to support BlockFrauds in the past 6 months. The progress, both on technical and business sides, has been very impressive, moving from pre-MVP status to pilot implementations that should take this startup to the next level. Roanna and Soadad have been two of the most enthusiastic and dedicated entrepreneurs from the 60 startups who participated in BlockStart accelerator in the past 3 years. We foresee great achievements in the near future for this great project!”
Lukas Etter, Partner at CV VC, commented:
“We decided to invest into BlockFrauds due to the massive disruption potential that can be brought into the insurance sector with blockchain technology: automating processes & solutions while providing protection to sensitive personal data are just some of the benefits for the insurers and users.”
Jamie Burke, CEO of Outlier Ventures, said:
“We have advised, invested in and incubated 30+ projects over 7 years across all 3 layers of Web 3 innovation: Infrastructure, Middleware and Applications. Having condensed this learning into an accelerator program ‘Base Camp’ to support pre-seed stage startups. BlockFrauds is an exciting part of our growing portfolio and has the potential to really impact the insurance sector with its innovative use of blockchain”