BillGuard is only half-New Yorker–CEOYaron Samidis based in “New York and Tel Aviv.” But the company, which combs your online statements for fraud and frivolous charges, garnered 10,000 sign-ups in a matter of days after launching in May at TechCrunch Disrupt. They discovered fraud on 20 percent of the new users’ bills, and a $6,000 erroneous charge on one wealthy individual’s card.
Now they’re announcing a $10 million Series B led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and IA Ventures.
The raise makes us think of other companies we ran into at that conference: Dispatch.io, a hackathon finalist now in TechStars; and Joinable, a hackathon honorable mention that is now defunct but whose founders also got into TechStars.
And we must mention that Skype acquired TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon winner GroupMe, for $85 million.
It’s also where we met Sonar.me, who we haven’t heard much from in a while, and Getaround, which has a few competitors now but has at least enough adoption to merit a Wall Street Journal mention last week. But dozens of companies make it onto the stage at TechCrunch–it’s hard to remember anyone but the rockstars, creating the impression that Disrupt makes a company go big.
(Full list of investors here.) The funding will be used to accelerate growth and support marketing, business development, sales and R&D expansion, said a press release. “Since launching in May, BillGuard has saved consumers nearly $500,000 in refundable charges, and found unwanted and unauthorized charges for nearly 20 percent of its users.”
