Apate.ai, a cyber-intelligence startup fighting Australia’s $2 billion scam industry, has raised $2.5 million in Seed funding.
The round was led by OIF Ventures, with Investible also taking part. The money will be used to develop the product, hire engineering and sales teams, expand globally, and strengthen partnerships with banks, telecom companies, and governments in Australia and abroad.
Founded last year as a spin-out from Macquarie University, Apate.ai has built thousands of AI bots that trick scammers by chatting with them on calls, WhatsApp, Telegram, and SMS.
Recently, the startup partnered with CommBank to launch AI-powered “victim bots” that waste scammers’ time while also collecting useful intelligence and data.
CommBank uses this near real-time scam intelligence to protect both its customers and the wider community.
The bots carry out lifelike conversations – even using slang and swearing – to distract scammers and collect important information, effectively turning their own tricks against them.
Cofounder and CEO Professor Dali Kaafar said the goal is to build an army of bots that can break down scam networks on a large scale.
“Scammers think they’re untouchable. We’re here to change that,” he said.
“Our bots divert and distract scammers, keeping them away from real victims whilst extracting critical threat intelligence. The intelligence we gather is used to further disrupt scam operations at their source, helping to protect vulnerable communities. We’re a mission-led organisation and this funding allows us to scale our impact exponentially.”
In 2024, Australians lost over $2 billion to scams, with more than 494,000 cases reported.
Apate.ai has also partnered with TPG Telecom, where its bots have blocked over 280,000 scam calls. This has wasted more than 100 days of scammers’ time in fake conversations.
Prof Kaafar said the deployment has helped prevent more than $7.6 million in potential customer losses, while gathering critical intelligence on scammer TTPs (tactics, techniques and procedures), including the identification of over 20,000 organisations that have been impersonated, including banks, telcos, and government bodies such as MyGov and the ATO.
His cofounder and Chief Commercial Officer, Brad Joffe, said the bots take scam responses from reactive to predictive.
“We’re giving institutions like CommBank the tools to act faster and smarter against a threat that’s evolving by the hour,” he said.
“This is just the beginning. We’re laying the foundation for a global intelligence infrastructure that can help dismantle scam operations before they ever reach real victims.”
The Apate platform uses AI and machine learning to respond in real time, running thousands of bots that act like real people with different emotions, accents, and behaviours. This keeps scammers talking for longer and helps collect useful information.
That information is then shared with banks, telecom companies, and government agencies so they can spot new types of scams and take action to protect consumers.
“This is the beginning of a new paradigm,” Professor Kaafar said.
“The same way we invest in physical security systems, we’re building a new intelligence layer to detect and disrupt scams at their source – with intelligence collected from the mouths and keystrokes of the scammers themselves.”
The funding announced comes during Scamwatch’s annual Scam Awareness Week.
OIF Ventures cofounder Jerry Stesel praised the global opportunity for Apate and its “extraordinary impact potential”.
“Their combination of world-class academic talent, AI engineering, and commercial focus positions them to become a category-defining company,” he said
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