Cybersecurity firm Evina, present in 70 countries that include 15 in Africa, has secured a €20-million Series A funding round to consolidate its fight against mobile fraud that has already prevented the theft of a billion euros from telecom operators and their clients.
Led by New York fund Radian Capital, this investment will help keep the pressure on the mobile cybercriminals that cost the African continent $4-billion in 2020.
“Africa is a priority region for Evina and the historical core of our business. At least half of this €20-million capital injection will be directed towards the fight against the professional cybercriminals targeting Africa’s mobile phone users,” says Evina CEO, David Lotfi.
Evina will now be able to expand its reach in Africa and elsewhere to better protect the billions of dollars that flow through the mobile payments ecosystem.
Africa has the benefit of being one of the most advanced markets in terms of mobile payment penetration. Unfortunately, this means it is also among the most exposed markets when it comes to attacks by cybercriminals from around the world and therefore needs the most advanced types of protection.
Lotfi believes financial services are the future of telecom operators which must provide new services to the huge customer bases they have patiently built up. Among these, financial services are the most crucial.
Today, these enable not only the possibility to buy digital content, mobile applications or subscriptions but also enable the receipt, withdrawal and transfer of money.
The goal is now to offer a highly efficient one-click payment method with conversion rates 100 times higher than those of a bank card.
Nearly 20% of global digital content purchases go through operators while $2,5-trillion is flowing through operators’ e-wallets. This amount is expected to double within five years. Africa is the biggest user of operators e-wallet in the form of mobile money in the world.
The financial services provided by operators are so successful that they have inevitably attracted organized crime from around the world. “All the criminal organizations in the world are converging on cybercrime,” warns Guillaume Poupard, director-general of the French National Agency for Information Systems Security.
It is to face this challenge that Evina was founded in 2018 by a team of hackers, cybersecurity researchers and financial services specialists who have worked for more than 15 years in the sector they protect. Evina realized that no one knew how to stop this new generation of cybercriminals who are extremely professional and well-resourced.
“We saw this as a major threat and decided to develop a dedicated solution. Very quickly, the largest operators around the world asked to implement our solutions,” explains Lotfi.
Evina is now present in over 70 countries. It protects the world’s largest telecom groups such as Orange and Vodacom, but also major digital merchants for whom control of operator payment is a strategic advantage. With a detection rate of 99,94% of false transactions and a false positive rate of less than 0,06%, Evina has prevented the theft of more than 1-billion euros over the last 12 months.
The €20-million fundraising will allow Evina to accelerate its commercial presence outside Europe, with the opening of offices abroad, and to strengthen its technical team with new talent, in order to consolidate its position as a leader in the world of financial services for telecom operators. The round also had the support of Evina’s historical investors including 50 partners, Saas Partners and Id4VC.