Ecommerce payment fraud occurs in several ways, such as a criminal using stolen credit card information to purchase goods from a retailer, or a consumer disputing a charge with the credit card company often under the guise that the retailer never sent an item.
Sift, which provides protection against that first type of fraud, last week acquired Chargeback, a vendor protecting against that second type, which is called chargeback fraud.
“Preventing chargeback fraud is the critical ‘last mile’ of stopping payment fraud entirely,” said Marc Olesen, president and CEO of Sift, in a statement. “With the addition of Chargeback’s team, technology, and partners, our customers gain a true hub for fighting all types of fraud and abuse while creating a more seamless experience. We’re excited to continue working together as we help our customers implement their Digital Trust & Safety strategies.”
Chargeback and Sift were already working together. Chargeback offered its customers a pre-built connection to tie into Sift offerings. Now, the combined company will be able to cover both types of fraud with one offering.
In other vendor news:
- Another fraud prevention company, Forter, raised $300 million in a Series F round that values the company at $3 billion. The funding comes half a year after its last funding round of $125 million, which valued the company at just $1.3 billion. Forter is focused on stopping fraud at the point of transaction, before items are shipped, but it’s also working on fraud remediation tools that help defrauded retailers deal with the fallout.
- A furniture manufacturer that drop-ships DNVB and direct-to-consumer furniture got a fresh round of investment from investment group Blackstone Tactical Opportunities. Walker Edison, which manufactures and drop-ships furniture for ecommerce brands, touts its logistics network and data-driven approach to producing products as key to its growth. However, the manufacturer does not disclose its growth nor which ecommerce brands it supplies its products to. Digitally native furniture brands in the 2021 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 grew 35.1% in 2020 and have a median 5-year CAGR of 48.7%.
- Conversational commerce provider Yalo raised $50 million last week in a Series C funding round, bringing its total funding to $75 million. The new funding, led by venture investor B Capital Group, will help the company move more aggressively into Latin America and Southeast Asia. Yalo, formerly known as Yalochat, lets retailers sell products through messaging apps like WhatsApp using personalized, conversational messages.
- Analytics provider Contentsquare completed a $500 million Series E led by SoftBank Vision Fund. The funding and SoftBank’s involvement will help the customer behavior analytics firm move into Asian territories. Top 1000 retailers like Walmart Inc. (No. 2) and Everlane Inc. (No. 286) use Contentsquare to get recommendations for things like content, user experience decisions and merchandising based on consumer behavior across a wide network of web, mobile and app interactions the vendor tracks.
- Many brands exclusively sell on Amazon.com Inc. (No. 1), and a company powering a number of them—Perch—announced last week a $775 million series A to acquire more Amazon-focused brands and expand into other marketplaces. Perch acquires and operates brands that sell just on Amazon, expanding them to wholesale with other merchants such as Target Corp. (No. 6) and Costco Wholesale Corp. (No. 10). Perch owns more than 70 brands, including legging brand Satina and teeth-whitening provider Cali White, and helps cut costs by getting them all on a unified technology platform for logistics, marketing and customer service.
- SCI Ecommerce, the online shopping service provider backed by two of Alibaba’s earliest employees, raised more than 50 million Singapore dollars ($38 million) last month to expand in Southeast Asia. SCI—short for Singapore, China, Indonesia—helps brands such as Unilever, Crayola, Nestle and Danone set up and manage their online stores in Southeast Asia and China. The startup, which was founded by CEO Joseph Liu in 2014, plans to use the fresh capital to set up local teams in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines and hire at least 100 employees across Southeast Asia and China in the next 12 months, adding to its near 200-person workforce. Existing investors include two of 18 original founders of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., James Sheng and Eddie Wu, as well as Jubilee Capital and Chinese tech entrepreneur Pang Shengdong. Alibaba owns and operates Taobao and Tmall, which hold the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the ranking for Digital Commerce 360 Top 100 Online Marketplaces.