bot-detection
(7)
A5 Labs
Behind WPT Global’s tables, A5 Labs turns streams of poker decisions into signals about bots, collusion and player skill. Its recent move brings that same game-theory machinery out of the security room and into the player’s hands.
SHIELD
SHIELD is a device-first fraud intelligence platform that helps online businesses stop fraud, build trust, and drive growth. Founded in 2008 by Justin Lie and originally known as CashShield, the company combines proprietary device fingerprinting with its Global Intelligence Network and AI to detect account takeovers, fake accounts, bot attacks, payment fraud, and incentive abuse in real time. SHIELD protects global platforms like inDrive, Alibaba, Swiggy, Meesho, and TrueMoney across ride-hailing, e-commerce, fintech, and gaming.
Johan Brissmyr
Johan Brissmyr is the CEO and co-founder of Castle, a security company that helps online businesses detect fraud, bots, and account takeover in real time. A computer scientist from Lund University, he started building web products in Malmo, Sweden before moving to Silicon Valley through Y Combinator and relocating the company to New York. Castle grew out of a password-storage side project that revealed a bigger opportunity in behavioral risk scoring, and today combines device fingerprinting, behavioral signals, and analytics into APIs used by companies of many sizes.
Nate Kharrl
Nate Kharrl is the Co-Founder and CEO of Spec (specprotected.com), a San Jose-based fraud prevention platform that uses behavioral analytics to detect and block sophisticated fraud, bots, and abuse before they impact customers. With a career spanning Akamai Technologies, ThreatMetrix, and eBay, Kharrl channeled nearly a decade of watching fraud fighters struggle with siloed tools into founding Spec in 2020. The company has raised over $33 million in funding, including a $15 million Series A led by SignalFire in October 2023, and protects Fortune 500 companies transacting billions in online commerce.
Spec
Spec is an AI-resistant fraud prevention platform that monitors the entire customer journey - not just login or checkout - to detect bots, fraud rings, and abusive AI agents in real time. Founded in 2020 in San Jose by ex-eBay and ThreatMetrix operators, Spec protects Fortune 500 consumer brands across e-commerce, ticketing, food delivery, and marketplaces.
Maxx Lobo
Maxx Lobo is the Chief Executive Officer of Ask Media Group, the IAC-owned digital media and performance marketing company behind Ask.com and other properties reaching 245 million people monthly. A two-decade veteran of ad-tech, cloud infrastructure, and digital media, Lobo rose through the ranks as CTO and COO/President before taking the top role in 2025. Under his operational leadership, Ask Media Group tripled its EBITDA from $50 million to over $100 million in four years, cementing his reputation as one of the more quietly effective operators in the digital media landscape.
Thanh Tran
Thanh Tran is Co-CEO of A5 Labs, a Foster City-based AI company building game integrity infrastructure for competitive online gaming. With a PhD in Computer Science from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and a background scaling Upwork's data science team through its IPO, he now leads a 180-person team applying deep reinforcement learning, blockchain reputation systems, and real-time behavioral analytics to eliminate bots, collusion, and cheating from online poker and beyond.