Tech startup Trustev scoops top award

Irish fraud prevention firm Trustev has been named as the top technology startup in Europe.

The company, which provides real-time identity verification to help reduce ecommerce fraud, was presented with the award in London yesterday evening as part of the European Commission’s Tech All Star initiative.

Among the finalists were SnapFashion and EcoChain. All three firms gave presentations to an audience containing some of the top investors in the world, answering questions on their business and technology, before the final decision was announced.

Cofounder Pat Phelan attributed the company’s success to the support of the Trustev team.

“When Chris (Kennedy) and I started off, we had this giant problem of online fraud in front of us, along the road we’ve been so lucky to find and bring together an amazing team of people and slowly but surely we know that we’ll be able to eliminate the scourge of fraud that’s preventing online commerce from reaching its potential,” he said.

Mr Phelan, who is a serial tech entrepreneur, also thanked fellow Irish tech startups for their encouragement.

“Without their support and encouragement it would have been a very lonely road to get here; that support is what really makes Ireland the best place in Europe to start a startup,” he said.

Trustev was co-founded by Mr Phelan and Mr Kennedy last year. The company, which is headquartered in Cork, was last month named as overall winner at the Global technology Leaders Summit in San Francisco, and also as one of the 30 global finalists at Techcrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

The company uses social fingerprinting technology, analyzing data from sources such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that assigns a “trust score” and determines of the transaction should go ahead. Online fraud costs retailers an estimated $20 billion every year, with a report by CyberSource claiming that $3.4 billion was lost by retailers to fraud in 2011 in North America alone.

Trustev is also part of Telefonic Ireland’s accelerator programme Wayra.