Disrupt Darling Trustev Wins Europe’s Top Startup Award

An EU Commission has named Trustev as the EU’s Top Startup, a prestigious honor that places the company head and shoulders above thousands of applicants. They announced the win at the Finder’s Forum in London.

Founded by Chris Kennedy and Pat Phelan, Trustev proves the identity of a shopper by creating a Social Fingerprint based on online interactions, as well as data sources that ensure the customer is, for example, in the proper geographic location. They closed a $300,000 seed round and will announce a larger round in two weeks.

“Chris had been working on the code for almost 18 months; I joined him at Christmas to take it to commercial launch. We had built up many years experience of fraud in our last two companies,” said Phelan. The company launched in April.

The runners-up in the contest were Ecochain and Snap Fashion. They all appeared at Tech All Stars in Berlin, and Trustev won the day after presenting at multiple startup events. The winner gets to present with the EU Minister in Dublin and gets €10,000 of Amazon hosting. More important is the international recognition the company gets in the Euro startup sphere and the attention of investors.

Trustev was part of the Disrupt Startup Alley in New York.