Fraud0

What Fraud0 does

Fraud0 is a Munich-based AI company that detects bot-generated traffic and recovers wasted advertising spend for brands, e-commerce operators, and marketing agencies. Founded in 2020 (per firmographics; one source cites 2021), the company serves over 100 large customers including Ulla Popken, AboutYou, Apollo Optik, Mobilezone, Wetter.com, Ruff Cycles, and Usercentrics. Fraud0 has raised €6 million in seed funding led by Signals.vc with participation from OMR X, Snowplow executives, and several strategic angels including the Zooplus co-founder.

The company's core product is an AI-powered detection platform that analyzes more than 4,000 device, network, and behavioral attributes per visitor — including mouse movement, device rotation, connection speed, browser fingerprints, and JavaScript challenge responses — to distinguish human users from sophisticated bots in real time. Its product suite is anchored by Paid Marketing Protection and Data Protection modules, supplemented by three enterprise add-ons (In-Ad CPM Protection, Affiliate Protection, Form Fill Protection). Its flagship offering, branded as the world's first AI Agent for Ad Refunds, autonomously audits Google Ads billing errors, invalid traffic, and policy violations to generate refund claims.

Fraud0 operates a hybrid go-to-market model combining self-serve product-led growth (14-day free trial, JS tag deployment in minutes) with enterprise field sales and an agency channel for managed-service buyers. Revenue is generated through a session-based subscription plus a 33.33% success fee on the monthly Google Ads Invalid Activity credit uplift over a 24-month baseline. Distribution leverages direct website signup, the Usercentrics marketplace integration, and reseller/agency partnerships, supported by annual research reports and a thought-leadership program anchored by advisor Dr. Augustine Fou.

Name

Fraud0

Legal name

fraud0 GmbH

Website

https://fraud0.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Fraud0 is a Munich-based AI platform that detects bot traffic, blocks invalid clicks, and automates Google Ads refund recovery for brands, e-commerce operators, and marketing agencies globally.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Ad Fraud Detection Software

akta.pro primary industry

Fraud Detection & Prevention (payments fraud, account takeover, scams) (FSAGAFAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Bot Management & Credential Stuffing Protection (FSAMALAG), Risk Scoring, Fraud & Anomaly Detection (HDAAAHAD)

Keywords

• Ad fraud detection
• Bot detection software
• Invalid traffic analysis
• Click fraud prevention
• Advertising analytics platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Munich

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Base Subscription Fee: Annual subscription based on the sum of sessions per year on customer websites. Base fee is payable in advance and recalculated at year-end based on actual sessions. Monthly-billed and yearly-billed plans available with 12-month contract terms.
2. Success Fee on Ad Refunds: 33.33% (one-third) success fee on the monthly 'Uplift' over 'Baseline' of Google Ads Invalid Activity credits. Baseline is average monthly credits for Invalid Activity during 24 months preceding service start date. Uplift is the portion exceeding Baseline each month.
3. Free Tier / Freemium: Free 14-day trial with full access to all features. After trial, accounts remain active but without service access until paid package selected. Package 'Free' tier available.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

Fraud0 is an AI-powered ad fraud detection and prevention platform that analyzes over 4,000 behavioral and device attributes per visitor to identify non-human traffic, invalid clicks, and fraudulent ad impressions. The platform includes an AI Agent for automated ad refund recovery from Google Ads and offers modular protection across paid marketing, data, in-ad CPM, affiliate, and form fill channels. Customers deploy a single JavaScript tag to start detecting bots and reclaiming wasted ad spend within minutes.

Product overview

Fraud0 is a bot and ad-fraud detection platform offering a unified product architecture centered on its AI Agent for Ad Refunds. The core platform combines Paid Marketing Protection and Data Protection modules for broad-spectrum invalid traffic detection, supplemented by three enterprise-tier add-ons: In-Ad CPM Protection for programmatic fraud, Affiliate Protection for affiliate fraud, and Form Fill Protection for fake lead detection. The platform leverages AI for bot detection and automated refund recovery, positioning itself as the world's first AI Agent specifically designed to audit ad platforms and recover wasted spend from billing errors and invalid activity.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• AI Agent for Ad Refunds Autonomous AI agent that audits Google Ads billing errors, invalid traffic, and policy violations to identify wasted ad spend and automatically generate refund cases. Recovers up to 10% of ad spend through a 100% Google-compliant refund process.
• Paid Marketing Protection Detection and prevention of invalid traffic and click fraud across paid marketing campaigns, protecting advertising budgets from bot-generated clicks and fraudulent activity.
• Data Protection Bot mitigation service that processes data based on GDPR Article 6 lit. f, using pixels to detect whether website visitors are bots or humans while maintaining privacy compliance.
• In-Ad CPM Protection Enterprise-tier protection for in-ad CPM fraud, detecting and preventing fraudulent ad impressions and protecting against invalid traffic in programmatic advertising.
• Affiliate Protection Enterprise-level protection against affiliate fraud, detecting fake leads and fraudulent affiliate-generated traffic.
• Form Fill Protection Enterprise feature that detects and flags bot-generated leads from form submissions, keeping sales funnels clean and preventing fraudulent lead data.

Quantifiable outcome

• Up to 10% of ad spend can be recovered through automated refunds
• +9 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability4 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Dr. Augustine FoucoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 29 August 2023Official close partnership with Dr. Augustine Fou, the world's leading ad fraud researcher and MIT PhD. Dr. Fou has authored over 1,500 scientific articles on cybersecurity and developed proprietary fraud detection technology. He advises on detection algorithms and provides industry credibility and thought leadership.
• Frauenhofer FKIEminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 29 August 2023Frauenhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics. Displayed as partner on website footer, suggesting research or technology collaboration.
• UsercentricscoreTechnology or Integration · 24 July 2023Strategic integration partnership with Usercentrics, a leading Consent Management Platform (CMP). fraud0 is available as an integration in Usercentrics marketplace from launch. The partnership provides Usercentrics customers with bot-cleaned CMP statistics including consent interaction rate, acceptance rate, and total consent rate broken down by humans vs. bots. Implementation requires no website or tag manager adjustments.
• Google AdscoreTechnology or IntegrationTechnology integration enabling fraud0 to audit Google Ads billing, detect invalid activity, and generate refund claims. Google-compliant integration allows fraud0 to submit refund requests on behalf of customers directly to Google.
• Google Cloud PlatformcoreTechnology or Integrationfraud0 uses Google Cloud Platform from Google Ireland Limited for data processing and storage. Servers located in Frankfurt and Belgium. Data processing performed in the European Union.

Scale indicators15 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• ClickCease: ClickCease offers click-fraud detection and blocking for Google Ads and Meta campaigns. It is a smaller, more self-serve-oriented direct competitor to Fraud0's SMB tier with similar positioning around protecting paid ad spend.
• HUMAN (formerly White Ops): HUMAN provides bot detection, ad fraud prevention, and account abuse protection across digital advertising and applications. It directly competes with Fraud0 in invalid traffic detection for advertisers and shares the same AI-driven, behavioral-signal detection approach.
• Lunio: Lunio is a click-fraud and invalid-traffic prevention platform for paid media channels. It competes head-to-head with Fraud0's Paid Marketing Protection feature, serving similar SMB and mid-market advertisers on Google Ads, Meta, and other channels.
• CHEQ: CHEQ provides go-to-market security including ad fraud, bot mitigation, and lead-generation fraud prevention. It overlaps closely with Fraud0's Paid Marketing Protection, Form Fill Protection, and Affiliate Protection modules.
• Anura: Anura is a fraud-detection solution focused on identifying bots, click fraud, and lead fraud. It directly competes with Fraud0 in IVT detection and form-fill/lead fraud for advertisers and agencies.
• HUMAN Advertising Verification (now part of HUMAN Security): HUMAN's Advertising Verification product specifically addresses pre-bid IVT detection, click fraud, and sophisticated invalid traffic. It is the closest scaled competitor to Fraud0 in advertiser-side IVT detection.
• Pixalate: Pixalate offers analytics and fraud detection for programmatic advertising, including invalid traffic detection across CTV, mobile apps, and web. It directly competes with Fraud0's ad-fraud use case and shares the analytics-driven, intelligence-report positioning.

Broad incumbents

• DoubleVerify: DoubleVerify is a leading media-effectiveness platform offering fraud/IVT detection, viewability, brand safety, and campaign analytics. It serves the same advertisers and agencies as Fraud0 but at much greater scale, with broader channel coverage including programmatic, CTV, and social.
• Integral Ad Science (IAS): IAS provides ad verification services including fraud detection, viewability, brand safety, and contextual targeting. Like DoubleVerify, it overlaps with Fraud0 on the IVT and invalid-traffic side but offers a much broader portfolio of verification products to global advertisers.

Emerging players

• TrafficGuard: TrafficGuard provides ad fraud prevention across paid media with a focus on click, impression, and conversion fraud. It has partial overlap with Fraud0, primarily serving agencies and affiliate-driven advertisers.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors4 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Fraud0