Variance

In this episode of Founder Firesides, YC Managing Partner Jared Friedman talks to Karine Mellata (@karine_exe), co-founder of Variance (@trustvariance), who is coming out of stealth and announcing their $21 million Series A. Variance builds purpose-built AI agents for risk and compliance — automating fraud detection, content review, and identity verification for Fortune 500 companies and platforms like GoFundMe. They discuss why Variance built in the shadows for three years, detecting state-sponsored fraud rings, and the accident that nearly ended the company. 00:49 – The AI That Keeps the Internet Safe 01:28 – Why They Stayed Secret for 3 Years 02:26 – You’ve Used This Without Knowing It 02:57 – How GoFundMe Stops Scams 03:59 – How Scammers Use Big News Events 05:50 – Checking IDs and Businesses Online 07:44 – How the AI Agents Work 09:28 – The Hardest Problem: Bad Data 12:07 – Why This Only Works Now 14:22 – Catching Organized Fraud Groups 16:26 – Tiny Team, Huge Output 20:18 – How They Met at Apple 22:24 – Getting Their First Customer 24:57 – Recovering from Getting Hit by a Truck 29:36 – Sticking to One Big Idea

In 2025, $4.4 trillion was spent on illegal activity through the global financial system. $1.1 trillion went to drug trafficking. $500 billion went to human trafficking. $16 billion went to terrorist financing. We raised $21.5 million to stop that.

alphabet came after our name, so we have a new name. meet variance! we took the opportunity to rebrand and double down on what we actually do: deep autonomous investigations for adversarial environments

Last chance to RSVP our Speakeasy Happy Hour with Replicate! Come see what AI founders are building and meet the community

Reminder that our AI speakeasy happy hour is tomorrow! We've got a great lineup of speakers - come meet fellow builders and hang out with us. 📍 Mission District, SF 📆 Wednesday, Feb 12th

we're hosting a show & tell happy hour for builders in AI with @replicate at their office in the mission. come hang!

We're co-hosting a special speakeasy happy hour with @trustintrinsic on Wednesday, February 12th. You'll hear from our stellar guest speakers and meet other AI builders and tinkerers. Come join us in the Mission District in SF!

Okta Ventures portfolio company @TrustIntrinsic is on a mission to create a safer internet by democratizing safety tooling. We sat down with their Co-Founder and CEO @KarineMellata to learn more about how they work with Okta 📝 bit.ly/3SfNpZT

Congrats to the team @trustintrinsic on the $3.1M seed! Founded by a team that worked on solving Trust & Safety issues for Apple's 1 billion users, Intrinsic (YC W23) enables companies to automate these processes, from observability to enforcement. techcrunch.com/2023/12/21/y-c…

thank you for the feature @TechCrunch, excited for 2024! @trustintrinsic @mlin_disco techcrunch.com/2023/12/21/y-c…

Welcome to YC W23, @karinemellata, @mlin_disco, and @trustintrinsic! Intrinsic allows companies to build and maintain high-quality content communities, monitor brand safety, and keep their users safe. Learn more: ycombinator.com/launches/IAW-i…