# Kevin Gosschalk

> Kevin Gosschalk is the Brisbane-born founder and CEO of Arkose Labs, a San Mateo cybersecurity company built around an unusual premise: online fraud is best defeated by making attacks uneconomic. A QUT-trained game designer who worked on machine-vision research before launching FunCaptcha with Matthew Ford, he turned interactive puzzles into a broader fraud-defense platform. In 2026, his book After Bots and Arkose's Agent Trust Manager extended that argument to AI agents, where intent and authorization matter more than a simple bot-or-human label.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Arkose Labs
- **Organizations:** Arkose Labs, FunCaptcha, SwipeAds, Queensland University of Technology
- **From:** Brisbane, Australia
- **Nationality:** Australian
- **Education:** Bachelor of Games and Interactive Entertainment, Queensland University of Technology, Multimedia Design, The University of Queensland
- **Known for:** Won Startup Weekend Brisbane in 2012 with the prototype concept that developed into FunCaptcha., Co-founded Arkose Labs and led it through a $70 million Series C financing in 2021., Named a top-ten finalist in the 2019 RSA Innovation Sandbox.

## Career timeline

- **2007-2010** — Studied multimedia design and games and interactive entertainment in Brisbane.
- **2012** — Co-authored research on a machine-vision mapping technique for the human corneal nerve plexus and helped create the concept and prototype that won Startup Weekend Brisbane.
- **2013** — Co-founded the venture that became FunCaptcha with Matthew Ford, applying game design to human verification.
- **2015** — Presented FunCaptcha's high-availability AWS architecture to the Brisbane AWS community.
- **2016** — Launched Arkose Labs around a broader fraud-prevention mission: make attacks unprofitable.
- **2017** — Reported 20 percent month-on-month revenue growth over an 18-month period and customers including StubHub, Electronic Arts and Kik.
- **2018** — Arkose Labs raised a Series A led by US Venture Partners and received a strategic investment from PayPal.
- **2019** — Presented as a top-ten finalist in the RSA Innovation Sandbox and demonstrated Arkose Labs at FinovateSpring.
- **2021** — Arkose Labs announced a $70 million Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
- **2022** — Received Queensland University of Technology's Outstanding Young Alumnus award.
- **2024** — Won the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2024 Bay Area Award and appeared on CBS News discussing bot defense.
- **2026** — Published After Bots and introduced an intent-based framework for AI-agent classification alongside Arkose Agent Trust Manager.

## Achievements

- Won Startup Weekend Brisbane in 2012 with the prototype concept that developed into FunCaptcha.
- Co-founded Arkose Labs and led it through a $70 million Series C financing in 2021.
- Named a top-ten finalist in the 2019 RSA Innovation Sandbox.
- Received QUT's Outstanding Young Alumnus award in 2022.
- Won the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2024 Bay Area Award.
- Authored the 2026 book After Bots: From Bot Detection to Agent Trust.
- Co-authored a 2012 peer-reviewed paper on wide-field imaging of the human corneal subbasal nerve plexus.
- Holds multiple patents in fraud prevention and bot-detection technologies.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Published field tests of consumer AI agents navigating commerce through ordinary browser and login flows, arguing that merchants need intent-aware controls.
- **2026-09** — Appeared on N2K CyberWire Daily to discuss After Bots and why intent should replace identity as the central question in automated traffic.
- **2026-06** — Published After Bots: From Bot Detection to Agent Trust and introduced Arkose Agent Trust Manager at Identiverse.
- **2026-03** — Presented an invite-only RSAC session on machine-scale fraud and agentic AI.
- **2024-06** — Won the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Bay Area Award.

## Links

- Website: https://www.arkoselabs.com/authors/kevin-gosschalk
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kgosschalk
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/FunCaptcha
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Funcaptcha/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/kevin-gosschalk
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-27