This Entrepreneur Raised $100 Million To Build A Fraud Prevention And Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Platform

In a candid and insightful conversation, Bence Jendruszak, co-founder of a leading fraud prevention company, shared his entrepreneurial journey, offering a blueprint for aspiring founders on scaling a global business, leadership growth, and staying ahead of market trends.

Born in Hungary and now based in the U.S., Bence’s path from the early days of cryptocurrency to leading a rapidly growing company offers valuable lessons in adaptability, resilience, and learning from mistakes. His company has accomplished incredible growth and raised over $100M.

In this interview, Bence talks about how Seon has offices in four locations worldwide with over 270 employees. He also talks about relocating from Europe to the US and what it looks like when a company outgrows its teams.

Listen to the full podcast episode and review the transcript here.

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A Global Upbringing: The Power of Adaptation

Bence’s early life, filled with constant movement due to his father’s career, shaped his ability to thrive in uncertainty. Growing up in various countries, including Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Hungary, taught him the invaluable skill of adapting to new environments, cultures, and languages.

This global experience became his “superpower,” making it easier for him to step out of his comfort zone and embrace change. This ability ultimately played a significant role in his decision to expand his business from Europe to the U.S.

“Moving constantly helped me step out of my comfort zone,” Bence recalls. “That sense of adaptability has been a core part of my journey, especially when we expanded into the U.S. market.”

Bence quickly developed an interest in the laws of engineering, maps, and physics. Being a numbers person, he was fascinated by these logic-driven fields. He had always liked to understand why things happen in the way that they happen.

Math, physics, and science were generally able to describe what Bence was experiencing in the world. The logical reasoning inspired him to become an engineer, study economics, and understand the grand scheme of how the world works.

From University Daydreams to a Crypto Exchange

Bence chose the path of economics and started studying business and management at university. His journey into entrepreneurship began at university, where he and his co-founder, Tamas Kadar, shared a fascination with the emerging world of cryptocurrency in the early 2010s.

In an era when crypto was far from mainstream, Bence and Tamas began discussing the potential of a crypto exchange as a side project, fueled by their belief in its future relevance.

At the time, many dark net markets relied on cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin, which were being shut down and restarted.

“Cryptocurrency was largely associated with illicit activities and exchanging goods and services back then, but we saw its potential,” Bence explains. “What started as a hobby project quickly turned into something bigger.”

The duo started accepting credit card payments, but the challenges of running a crypto exchange quickly surfaced. One of the most significant issues they encountered was rampant fraud—fraudsters using stolen identities and credit card information.

This challenge was not entirely unknown to Bence and Tamas since they had been reading the dark web forums where people talked about cryptos. It was clear that even kids could learn the most basic script and how to fraud businesses online.

The two realized that anonymity from all aspects was a perfect inflection point for fraudsters to start doing what they were doing on a larger scheme. This fact led to a pivotal moment for the founders, setting them on a new course that would ultimately shape the future of their business.

They decided to start thinking like the fraudsters and how to filter them out. They couldn’t find anything when they researched the market for fraud tools. Everybody was aiming for an enterprise sales motion, and Bence and Tamas weren’t exactly their ideal customer profile.

Pivoting to Fraud Prevention: A New Beginning

As fraud became a persistent issue, Bence and his team decided to pivot away from the crypto exchange and build their fraud detection tools. Initially, they developed solutions to protect their own business.

But these tools soon became the foundation of a full-fledged fraud prevention company, Seon. “We realized that fraud wasn’t going anywhere,” Bence says. “Almost every online business was affected by it, and we had the tools to help.”

Their proprietary fraud detection system uses various checks, from IP monitoring to checking for VPN and Tor usage. They also started monitoring email addresses to identify discrepancies between billing information, IP locations, and other minor trends.

As Bence recalls, they dived very deep into the intricacies of how fraudsters are thinking. The tools they developed proved invaluable, leading to the decision to pivot entirely from running a crypto exchange to building a robust fraud prevention platform, which paid off handsomely.

Bence reveals that Seon’s business model is very simple. The tools support businesses by conducting various levels of checks and can monitor fraud at the point of registration, logins, the point of a transaction, or a checkout process.

There are many different angles where the consumer integrates the simple Seon API integration. Billing is done on the usage of the system, so the more checks Seon does, the more the customer pays. Bence outlines a ballpark figure of a couple of cents per check.

Expanding into the U.S.: A Founder’s Journey

As Bence recalls, they initially started building the business out of Budapest, Hungary. Soon, Bence and Tamas were serving customers in Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.

Seon had a decent revenue share, but the duo knew that piercing the intensely competitive US market would be challenging. Each time Bence and Tamas talked to a US prospect, their queries would be about having a US presence, customers, a sales account, or a locally-based account executive.

Seon did not enter the US market for around three to four years. Bence and Tamas felt they could drive enough revenue from the different markets in which they were already working. They also knew they would need more dry powder to tackle the US market basically.

After the Series A funding round sometime in 2020, they realized the U.S. market was crucial for their next growth phase. With that objective, Bence and Tamas hired a few account executives, brought them to Hungary for training, and sent them back to the U.S. to kickstart operations.

However, it quickly became apparent that this approach wasn’t working. Realizing that one of the founders needed to relocate, Bence made the decision to move to Austin, Texas, where the company now has its U.S. headquarters.

The Challenges of Scaling: From 30 to 300 Employees

Rapid growth can be a double-edged sword, and Bence is no stranger to the pitfalls of scaling too quickly. After tripling revenue year over year, the company grew from 30 employees to nearly 300 in just 24 months.

Bence remembers how Seon went from $1M ARR to $3M and $10M ARR in a couple of consecutive years. This period of explosive growth brought new challenges, including the need to implement systems, hire the right leaders, and manage teams across multiple time zones.

“We thought we could replicate what worked at a smaller scale, but we were wrong,” Bence admits. “Scaling isn’t just about doing more of the same—it requires process, structure, and the right people.”

During this phase, the team made several mistakes, particularly around leadership. In some cases, they promoted people internally without having the right experience or processes in place, leading to difficult but necessary course corrections.

Bence’s humility in recognizing and learning from these mistakes has been a key factor in the company’s continued success.

The Importance of Leadership: Letting Go of Ego

As the company continued to grow, one of the hardest lessons Bence learned was the need to let go of ego and recognize when leadership needed to change. The skills that served the company in its early stages were not necessarily the ones required to take it to the next level.

Bence and his co-founder had to make tough decisions about their executive team, sometimes having difficult conversations about bringing in new leadership to scale the business.

“Whatever worked from $1M to $10M ARR isn’t going to get you from $10M to $50M and then to $200M ARR,” Bence explains. “You have to up-level your teams and your leadership as the company grows.”

In some cases, long-time team members decided they preferred the early stages of a startup and moved on, while others stayed and learned from the new leaders brought in.

Bence emphasizes the importance of transparency and setting the right goals to ensure everyone is aligned on the company’s path forward.

A Global Business with Strong Growth

Today, Bence’s company has grown to over 270 employees, with offices in four countries and an impressive $40M in annual recurring revenue (ARR). They’ve raised around $100M, with their Series B round closing in early 2022.

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Despite the challenges of scaling, Bence remains committed to helping online businesses solve their fraud-related problems and continues to drive the company toward its ultimate goal: taking the business public.

As Bence explains, raising funding for Seon has been streamlined since fraud is a growing economy, and businesses are spending more and more on fraud tools each year. It’s a sticky problem, and investors are interested in cybersecurity and fraud prevention.

Regarding funding cycles, Bence reveals that the seed stage is just about getting product market fit and hustling through early revenue growth. Seed-stage founders typically spend time driving demo calls all day while writing blog posts for the SEO strategy and hope to drive inbound traffic.

From seed to series A onward, the company has likely identified what works, the relevant verticals it can address, and how to solve the use cases. That’s when it starts to add more heads to its organizational structure.

But, by this time, founders should have processed and implemented systems and processes and upleveled the company leadership. In retrospect, Bence recognizes that they missed this crucial step. Seon’s new CRO brought great value to the executive team and steered it in a new direction.

As Bence reveals, Seon is getting good US traction and has closed several deals. They work in a very impactful industry and help stop bad actors from their activities. The implications are to make customers safer and to help businesses save money.

While Seon is focused on staying a step ahead, Bence concedes that bad actors are also good at finding loopholes. However, they are moving toward helping enterprise customers solve their fraud issues. Seon is, essentially, enterprise-ready, and Bence is looking forward to going public.

Final Thoughts: Building for the Long-Term

Bence’s journey from a curious university student dabbling in cryptocurrency to the co-founder of a successful fraud prevention company is a testament to the power of adaptability, humility, and learning from mistakes.

Bence’s story offers valuable lessons for any entrepreneur looking to build a business that not only survives but thrives in the long term. He is committed to giving back to the community and spends time interacting with aspiring founders, understanding their problems, and guiding them.

“Growth can outpace people, processes, and leadership,” Bence reflects. “But if you’re willing to learn, adapt, and sometimes make the hard decisions, you can build something truly lasting.”

Listen to the full podcast episode to know more, including:

• Bence Jendruszak’s global upbringing instilled adaptability, a critical skill that shaped his entrepreneurial journey and business expansion into the U.S.
• His interest in engineering and logical reasoning inspired him to study economics and later enter the world of cryptocurrency.
• Pivoting from a crypto exchange to fraud prevention, Bence and his team founded Seon to combat online fraud with innovative tools.
• Expanding Seon into the U.S. market required relocating and rethinking the initial approach to achieve growth.
• Scaling from 30 to 300 employees presented challenges, highlighting the importance of structure, process, and experienced leadership.
• Letting go of ego and recognizing when to bring in new leadership was essential to Seon’s continued success.
• Seon’s focus on solving fraud issues has led to impressive growth, raising over $100M and aiming to take the business public.

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