US fintech Stripe acquires Y Combinator startup Bouncer

US fintech Stripe, a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet, announced it has acquired Bouncer, a company building card authentication technology to reduce fraud during online transactions. Bouncer’s team and technology will join Stripe to further enhance the capabilities of Radar, Stripe’s powerful, machine-learning-based fraud prevention tool.

Bouncer’s card scanning and risk technology is used to help online businesses reduce fraud and authenticate cards. Bouncer will be integrated into Stripe Radar, a fraud prevention tool whose machine learning models are trained on purchases made at millions of companies around the world every day. Radar is fully integrated into Stripe’s payments platform. When it identifies a specific transaction as high risk, Radar will use Bouncer’s card scanning and verification technology to confirm that an end customer has a legitimate card in their hands at the time of the purchase. This extra layer of protection will reduce false positives among potentially high risk transactions.

“Bouncer is a great tool for modern internet businesses. It allows them to quickly identify stolen cards, while also ensuring legitimate customers can transact without being blocked,” said Simon Arscott, business lead for Stripe Radar. “We’re thrilled to welcome the Bouncer team, and their years of experience building payment authentication software for businesses, to Stripe and to enable their technology for Radar users. With the addition of advanced card scanning capabilities, Stripe Radar will be able block more fraud and further increase revenue for millions of businesses around the world who rely on Stripe.”