Apate.AI raises $11.4m, moves to US, builds sales team from Sydney base
Sydney-based Apate.AI closed a $11.4m Seed round led by Silicon Valley's Lobby Capital, with OIF Ventures, Investible, Concept Ventures, and Baobab Ventures participating. The company is now US-incorporated (Delaware) and opening a London office next quarter.
This is Apate's second raise in 12 months. They closed $2.5m in August 2025 (OIF Ventures led). Total raised: roughly $14m.
What the company does: Apate deploys AI bots that engage scammers in conversation, wasting their time and extracting intelligence. Commonwealth Bank has run over 2.5 million autonomous conversations with threat actors using the platform, collecting 250,000+ intelligence artefacts. Some bot conversations have lasted 2 hours.
What this means for sales teams: Apate is building its commercial function from the ground up. CCO Brad Joffe joined specifically to build the go-to-market motion. The company sits at 11-50 employees (sources vary: 13-17 confirmed), based in Macquarie Park, NSW.
CPO Peter Eckermann is relocating to the US to lead North American expansion. Tech and research teams stay in Sydney. This is the classic early-stage move: founder-led selling transitioning to structured enterprise sales.
Market context: Apate sits in the fraud detection and scam prevention space, but with a different angle than traditional detection tools (ZoomInfo, buyer verification platforms, prospecting fraud filters). Most fraud tools watch for scams after they happen. Apate actively engages threat actors before they reach real victims.
The global scam industry costs $1.4 trillion annually. Banks, telcos, and governments spend billions on detection. Apate's thesis: flip the script, waste scammers' time, gather intelligence, disrupt their business model.
The comp angle: No OTE or sales hiring numbers disclosed yet. Watch this space as Joffe scales the commercial team through 2026-2027. Early-stage startups with this much capital and a CCO hire typically add 3-8 AEs within 12 months of a Seed close.