ClearTrust, a new-age ad tracking and fraud detection platform, has raised $1.9 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Venture Capital firm Ideaspring Capital with participation from Piper Serica Angel Fund. Existing investor Alacrity India also participated in the round.
Before the new round, ClearTrust had raised $200,000 in seed rounds from Alacrity India, Limelight UK, and ThinkNext LLC in 2021.
Founded in 2020 by seasoned tech visionaries Deepankar Biswas and Raja TN, the company helps advertising ops, media buying companies, and teams worldwide with its state-of-the-art tracking and fraud detection platform.
It facilitates advertisers, agencies, and networks to achieve higher ROI on their digital campaigns by removing fraudulent and fake activity from their campaigns, thereby protecting AdSpend and brands’ reputations.
It also helps digital publishers to protect their ad revenues from fake and invalid traffic in real-time.
The capital raised will be used to expand its operations into North America and further invest in research and development in AI, cybersecurity, and deep tech to develop critical filters that will help detect advertising frauds that have become one of the biggest threats to the advertising industry lately. ClearTrust has 34 clients in the US, Israel, India, and Europe, the company said in a statement.
Deepankar Biswas, co-founder and CEO of ClearTrust, who has extensive experience in media buying and the internet, said, “With a keen focus on expanding into the US market, this funding propels us towards innovating and implementing solutions that ensure the integrity and efficiency of online advertising."
To this, Raja TN, co-founder and CTO of ClearTrust, added, “The rapid growth of ad inventory and outpacing demand has made digital advertising a breeding ground for fraudsters to exploit unsuspecting brands.
Programmatic media traders are particularly vulnerable, often hindered by complex and costly anti-fraud technologies, leading to a trust deficit with advertisers. ClearTrust helps save costs by at least 30 per cent.”
The company has witnessed a 3X annual growth for the last two years and aims for a yearly revenue of $10 million by 2027, it added in a statement.
The platform offers security solutions, including traffic scanning, precise tracking, and a real-time dashboard with over 140+ traffic scoring filters, system alerts, and many customer-centric features.
On funding, Ideaspring Capital, managing partner, Naganand Doraswamy said, “Ideaspring Capital is excited to partner with Deepankar and Raja, Co-Founders of ClearTrust. As digital ad formats evolve and more ads are trading programmatically, fraud detection processes are becoming complex. This results in 23 per cent of all advertising spend being lost to fraud, estimated to reach $170 billion by 2028. Cleartrust’s real-time, scalable cybersecurity platform will mitigate this risk. The platform works towards increasing revenue-generating traffic for advertisers, publishers, and ad networks.”
To this, Abhay Agarwal, founder of Piper Serica Angel Fund, said, “We expect the company to be a global player in the next 2-3 years, helping large multinational companies run safe advertising and digital campaigns profitably and with increased ROI.”