Sardine Raises $70M Series C to Boost AI Fraud Prevention

Sardine, based in San Francisco, has secured US$70 million in Series C funding, led by Activant Capital.

This latest investment brings the company’s total funding to US$145 million and will accelerate efforts to strengthen fraud prevention and compliance capabilities for financial institutions and businesses worldwide.

Founded in 2020, Sardine was established to address the growing challenges in fraud detection and compliance as financial transactions become faster and AI-driven scams more sophisticated.

With the latest funding, Sardine is further developing its suite of AI agents designed to enhance fraud detection and compliance workflows.

These AI agents automate key risk functions while maintaining human oversight and regulatory transparency.

Among them is the KYC Agent, which automates complex identity verification processes, reducing onboarding delays, with an auto-resolution rate of 88%.

Sardine’s platform consolidates risk management across fraud prevention, anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, and credit underwriting.

With over 2.2 billion devices profiled, the company leverages network effects to identify emerging fraud patterns across industries.

The company plans to use the Series C funding to further enhance its AI-driven fraud detection capabilities, expand global operations, and improve real-time risk assessment for financial services.

Its focus will be on enhancing AI agents while ensuring compliance with regulatory standards, integrating fraud prevention and AML capabilities into a single risk management platform, improving real-time transaction monitoring for instant payment systems, and detecting AI-generated fraud through behavioural biometrics and device intelligence.

Sardine also aims to strengthen security for digital stores of value, including pensions, loyalty points, and gift cards, and refine risk detection capabilities for B2B transactions.

As financial regulations evolve, the company is also preparing to help banks and fintech firms meet new compliance requirements, such as Nacha’s upcoming fraud detection mandate for ACH credits by June 2026.

“This funding will accelerate our mission to rebuild trust in financial services. The challenges we face are immense, but we’ve assembled a team of risk experts, data scientists, and engineers dedicated to solving these problems,”

the company stated.