Written by Christina Levada
A new intelligence-led startup, AVIEL Intelligence, has emerged from stealth with an ambitious mission: to stop financial scams before they happen. Founded by ex-Google operators, the former UK director of what3words, and leading intelligence experts, AVIEL Intelligence has secured a £350,000 pre-seed investment round led by Fuel Ventures, one of the UK’s leading early-stage venture capital firms. The round also includes backing from Cambridge Angels and a range of other angel investors including respected experts across the cybersecurity industry.
Fuel Ventures, one of the UK's leading venture capital firms, has announced its latest investment in AVIEL Intelligence, as lead investor in a £350k round. Having launched in 2024, AVIEL Intelligence delivers actionable intelligence to banks and payment service providers (PSPs), helping them prevent customers from being scammed. The company’s proprietary intelligence engine is already live, actively identifying scam networks and enabling PSPs to take real-time action to block fraud before it occurs.
The rise in scams, dubbed a “scamdemic” by Government and media, has hit consumers and institutions hard. But a major regulatory shift has brought new urgency to the fight. Since October 2024, over 1,100 PSPs have come under new Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) rules, requiring them to reimburse victims of APP (Authorised Push Payment) fraud – effectively transferring liability from consumers to financial institutions.*
Following the ruling, it's more important to PSPs to prevent scams proactively than ever before. AVIEL Intelligence is already helping high street banks and neobanks do just that; actively stopping scams in real time. The platform is laser-focused on producing intelligence that banks and PSPs can act on immediately - whether that’s stopping a customer from sending money to a scammer or removing scammers from their own banking platforms.
In a unique approach to scam intelligence, AVIEL Intelligence has created a suite of AI personas that interact with scammers through digital platforms, and as conversations move to “end-to-end encrypted” environments such as WhatsApp, the AI personas extract information from the scammer. For receiving banks, this is a game changer - understanding which of its accounts are being used in scams.
This investment will power AVIEL’s next phase of growth, including its go-to-market expansion across the UK and internationally, and continued product development. Key priorities include increasing the speed and accuracy of scam detection, expanding the scope of scams covered, and scaling up intelligence delivery.
AVIEL’s founding team brings together deep experience in cybersecurity, social media monitoring and alternative finance.
Joe Tallett, Co-Founder and CEO of AVIEL Intelligence, said:
“We couldn’t be more excited about closing our funding round and ramping up our anti-scam activities. With Fuel Ventures supporting our vision and providing the backbone of our funding round, AVIEL can accelerate fast.”
Mark Pearson, Managing Partner of Fuel Ventures, shared:
“AVIEL is tackling one of the biggest challenges facing banks and payment service providers today. The team has found a completely unique angle – using intelligence, not just analytics, to stop scams at the source. Their approach is bold, focused and scalable, and we’re excited to back them at this critical stage.”
About AVIEL Intelligence
AVIEL Technologies provides precision intelligence to protect financial institutions and their customers from the breakout cybercrime of the 2020s - financial scams. Its unique intelligence engine - ‘EVIE’ - sets traps for scammers and returns valuable intelligence. This intelligence enables scam payments to be halted in real time; stopping bank customers from becoming victims. AVIEL's vision is to deploy its unique cybercrime prevention capability globally.
For reference:
*https://www.psr.org.uk/information-for-consumers/app-fraud-reimbursement-protections/
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