Why Emergence led Casap's $25M Series A to thoughtfully eliminate a longstanding problem facing banks, credit unions, and fintechs
In modern finance, the only thing more valuable than money is trust.
Unfortunately, fraud is everywhere. It's a persistent tax on the system: costly, chronic, and increasingly personal. Third-party fraudsters now have access to technology that makes impersonation and stealing credit card information easier than ever. But the real crisis? First-party fraud—users defrauding their own financial institution by claiming unauthorized purchases they actually made—is skyrocketing, increasing 2.5x year-over-year and now representing over 35% of all fraud losses.
The result is a $100B+ problem that compounds daily. Disputes pile up (Are they legit? Are they not?). Legitimate customers acting in good faith get lumped in with bad actors—facing the same delays, scrutiny, and frustration despite doing nothing wrong. And this happens at the worst possible moment: when customers feel most vulnerable and exposed, having just discovered unauthorized charges on their account.
The experience a customer’s bank provides in this emotional, high-stakes moment can make or break their relationship with that institution. But instead of being focused on creating a magic trust-building moment for customers, financial institutions are drowning in ever-growing volumes of disputes, manual processes, and compliance deadlines that make meaningful customer care nearly impossible.
AI may be transforming everything from customer service to investment ops. But post-transaction risk remains frustratingly analog. That's the gap Casap is closing.
Converting Tension into Trust
Casap is building the first intelligence layer for post-transaction risk, starting with a bold mission to eliminate first-party fraud. Their entry point? Dispute operations—an area long considered broken and disconnected from modern banking.
The current process is a nightmare. Financial institutions are trapped in manual workflows with impossible compliance deadlines and fragmented systems. They're forced to hire armies of back-office staff to manually process each dispute, auto-approve claims below a certain threshold (often hundreds of dollars) to avoid regulatory penalties, or outsource to expensive third-party vendors with limited visibility. Meanwhile, compliance requirements like Reg E mandate quick turnarounds, creating enormous operational pressure with no good options.
Casap changes everything. They've replaced legacy, manual workflows with AI-native infrastructure built for scale, speed, and precision. Their platform gives consumers DoorDash-style transparency while giving institutions a faster, smarter way to manage risk. AI agents handle the entire lifecycle—from intake to evidence collection, outcome prediction, and automatic chargeback filing.
The results speak for themselves: Casap customers have cut first-party fraud losses by up to 51%, achieved 50%+ faster processing times, and dramatically improved member satisfaction. They're helping institutions handle 4–5x more fraud volume without adding headcount.
No spreadsheets. No hold music. Just speed, clarity, and resolution.
A Wedge with Compounding Power
Casap's go-to-market playbook is smart and surgical:
- Start with dispute resolution, a mission-critical, hair-on-fire workflow with clear ROI
- Earn trust by delivering compliance-grade results at scale
- Expand upstream—into intelligence and prevention
What makes this approach so powerful? By automating dispute management, Casap is simultaneously building a proprietary dataset on transaction fraud patterns. This intelligence becomes the foundation for their ultimate vision: a real-time scoring engine for first-party fraud—think "FICO for first-party fraud." (I have recently written a broader investment thesis on how AI-powered workflows can be used to aggregate previously impossible datasets that can be leveraged to make 10x better products).
Imagine the future: You file a dispute with a high Casap score? Instant refund. Got caught pretending that $1,000 TV from Best Buy wasn't actually yours? Your Casap score will reflect that and next time you file for a dispute, you'll need more thorough documentation. It's a complete transformation from reactive cost center to proactive competitive advantage.
“In fintech, you must move fast, but you cannot break things.”
Founder-Led, Fintech Fluent
Both co-founders have lived this problem firsthand. Shanthi Shanmugam, a former product lead at Robinhood, launched core consumer products including 24/7 customer support and crypto trading. And, she built Casap as she had her first child—a full-time job in its own right. Saisi Peter brings equally impressive technical depth from building products at Chime, Instacart, and Meta. Together, they understand that in heavily-regulated fintech, trust is everything and speed without safety is a nonstarter.
As I often say: in fintech you must move fast, but you cannot break things. Enabling financial institutions requires a mindset built on compliance, deep customer empathy, and sustained product excellence. From day one, Shanthi and Saisi focused on the hardest questions:
How do we earn trust in a regulated market?
How do we ship a product that fraud, compliance, and dispute managers actually want to use?
How do we design for safety without sacrificing speed?
The answer is evident in their results. Banks and credit unions are notoriously slow at making tech decisions, yet Casap has converted them into paying customers at unprecedented speed. This is what superb product-market fit looks like.
Why We Invested
Casap is transforming dispute operations from a risk-drenched cost center into a competitive advantage and trust-building weapon. In a world where fraud tactics constantly evolve, transactions grow more complex, and customer expectations continue rising, Casap provides the intelligent automation that financial institutions desperately need.
They're not just fixing fraud—they're building the infrastructure to prevent it. With empathy, technical rigor, and a roadmap that compounds, they're creating the future of post-transaction fraud operations.
That's why Emergence led Casap's $25M Series A. It's why we're thrilled to partner with Shanthi, Saisi, and the entire Casap team. And it's why I believe first-party fraud will soon become a thing of the past.
