University of Arizona tech spinoff NeuroID acquired by global credit giant Experian

NeuroID, a University of Arizona startup that developed technology to detect online fraud by analyzing user behavior, has been acquired by global credit giant Experian.

Terms of the deal for the privately held NeuroID were not disclosed.

NeuroID was founded in 2015 based on research by co-founders Joseph Valacich, professor of management information systems and Muzzy Endowed Chair at the UA Eller College of Management, and his former Ph.D. student, Jeff Jenkins, now a professor of information systems at Brigham Young University.

The company moved its headquarters to Montana in 2016.

NeuroID’s analytics technology tracks and interprets customers’ “digital body language” — online behavior such as how they type or click through a form — to boost legitimate transactions while spotting and isolating costly fraud in real time.

Experian said NeuroID’s technology — already incorporated into its technology platform — will boost the company’s anti-fraud efforts by providing a new layer of insight into digital behavioral signals and analytics observed for both new and returning users.

Experian, which began using NeuroID’s anti-fraud tech last year, is one of the “Big Three” credit-reporting companies worldwide, along with TransUnion and Equifax.

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Ireland-based Experian said the emergence of fraud driven by generative artificial intelligence has motivated companies across industries from financial services to health care and e-commerce to seek new types of fraud-detection technology, such as behavioral analytics.

“We are in a new era of fraud driven by AI. Companies are under immense pressure to rapidly innovate and advance their approach to fighting fraud. NeuroID unlocks a new view into a user’s riskiness based on behavioral interactions,” Jack Alton, CEO of NeuroID, said in a news release announcing the acquisition. “This view arms companies with a proactive, first line of defense to detect sophisticated fraud rings and bot attacks.”

NeuroID was helped to market by Tech Launch Arizona, the University of Arizona’s technology-transfer arm, which helped patent and license the technology and form the company.

The company was named the I-Squared (Innovation and Impact) Startup of the Year in 2020 by TLA, which also honored Valacich as the I-Squared Inventor of the Year for Information Technology in 2016.

In May, Valacich was awarded the UA’s Distinguished Innovation & Entrepreneurship Award.