InfoHawk Raises $2.25M Pre-Seed to Fight AI-Powered Deception at Internet Scale
InfoHawk, an Austin-based AI company focused on detecting and neutralizing online deception, has raised $2.25M in Pre-Seed funding led by Moonshots Capital. The company was founded by Rob Leathern (Founder & CEO), Benjamin Poiesz (Co-Founder), and Jamie McCrindle (Founder & Software Engineer). The funding round also included investors Jon Leibowitz, Brian O'Kelley, Rob Goldman, James Walker, Scott Spencer, Vlad Fedorov, and Nikila Srinivasan.
InfoHawk is building an AI platform designed to detect, analyze, and neutralize scams, impersonation, online fraud, and deception at internet scale through API-driven infrastructure. The funding reflects a growing reality across the technology ecosystem: as AI lowers the cost of creating convincing deception, demand is rising for systems capable of identifying it before trust breaks down.
Key Facts
InfoHawk is headquartered in Austin, Texas and operates across AI, Trust & Safety, fraud prevention, and cybersecurity infrastructure. The company raised $2.25M in Pre-Seed funding led by Moonshots Capital and was founded by Rob Leathern (Founder & CEO), Benjamin Poiesz (Co-Founder), and Jamie McCrindle (Founder & Software Engineer).
The company's product is an AI platform designed to detect, analyze, and neutralize online deception at internet scale. Its technology combines advanced AI models with large-scale internet data and delivers capabilities through APIs that can be integrated directly into existing systems and workflows.
What Happened
The internet has always had scammers. The difference now is productivity. For decades, deception required effort. A scammer had to write the email, create the fake profile, build the fake website, and convince one victim at a time. Artificial intelligence changed the economics.
Today, bad actors can generate convincing content, clone identities, automate outreach, and operate at a scale that would have required entire organizations just a few years ago. The cost of creating believable deception is collapsing. That backdrop makes InfoHawk's $2.25M Pre-Seed round particularly interesting because the Austin startup is not building another AI assistant. It is building infrastructure designed to identify deception itself.
According to the company's official funding announcement, InfoHawk combines advanced AI models with large-scale internet data to detect, analyze, and neutralize online scams and deceptive behavior. The platform is delivered through highly performant APIs, positioning it as infrastructure organizations can integrate directly into existing systems and workflows. The round was led by Moonshots Capital, with participation from a group of investors whose backgrounds span digital advertising, platform integrity, trust and safety, and large-scale technology ecosystems.
Why This Matters
Every major technology wave creates a security wave. Cloud computing created cloud security. Mobile computing created mobile security. Generative AI is creating something different. It is creating a trust problem.
Most discussions around artificial intelligence focus on productivity gains such as faster coding, better customer support, and automated content generation. Far less attention is paid to the fact that AI is also dramatically improving the efficiency of fraud, impersonation, manipulation, and deception. The same technology that helps businesses operate faster can help bad actors operate faster.
That reality is creating a new category of infrastructure companies focused not on generating content but verifying it. InfoHawk operates at the intersection of AI, Trust & Safety, fraud prevention, platform integrity, and cybersecurity infrastructure. Trust & Safety refers to the technologies and policies used to identify scams, abuse, impersonation, fraud, and harmful behavior across digital platforms. The company's technology addresses a growing wave of online fraud, impersonation attacks, and AI-generated scams.
Market Context
Trust and safety has quietly become one of the most important infrastructure layers in modern technology. Consumers rarely think about it when everything works. They think about it immediately when it fails. A fake seller on a marketplace, a fraudulent transaction, an impersonation attack targeting an executive, or a coordinated scam campaign spreading across social platforms creates more than financial damage. It creates uncertainty.
According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's consumer fraud reporting data, fraud losses continue to rise as digital interactions become increasingly complex and sophisticated. The challenge for platforms is that deception is becoming increasingly sophisticated while operating costs continue to fall. AI-generated content can be produced in seconds and distributed globally almost instantly.
This dynamic is forcing companies to rethink how trust is established and maintained online. That shift is creating opportunities for startups like InfoHawk that focus on detection, analysis, and prevention rather than content generation itself. The market conversation around AI often centers on what machines can create. The next phase may focus on what machines can verify.
Competitive Landscape
InfoHawk enters a growing ecosystem of companies working across fraud prevention, trust and safety, identity verification, cybersecurity, and platform integrity. What distinguishes InfoHawk is its specific focus on online deception at internet scale. Many fraud solutions focus on financial transactions. Many cybersecurity tools focus on network security. Many content moderation platforms focus on policy enforcement.
InfoHawk is targeting a broader challenge: identifying deceptive behavior patterns wherever they emerge. The company's API-first architecture also suggests a strategy built around integration rather than replacement. Organizations increasingly prefer infrastructure that works inside existing technology stacks rather than forcing entirely new workflows. That approach often becomes more attractive as trust and safety requirements spread across industries.
What This Signals
The investor list may be one of the most revealing parts of the announcement. Investors including Jon Leibowitz, Brian O'Kelley, Rob Goldman, James Walker, Scott Spencer, Vlad Fedorov, and Nikila Srinivasan have spent years operating inside some of the most influential technology, advertising, and platform ecosystems in the world. These are individuals who understand how information moves across the internet and, more importantly, how manipulation moves across it.
Their participation suggests growing recognition that AI-driven deception is no longer a future concern. It is a current operational challenge. For founders, operators, and investors, that distinction changes how technology risk is evaluated. Moonshots Capital's involvement is also notable because the firm has built a reputation for backing early-stage founders tackling complex, high-impact market problems before they become obvious consensus bets.
The Bigger Industry Shift
The AI market is entering a new phase. The first wave focused on creation. The next wave may focus on verification. For every breakthrough in synthetic content generation, there is increasing demand for systems that can determine authenticity, identify manipulation, and preserve trust.
That is where InfoHawk's story becomes larger than a funding announcement. The company sits at the convergence of artificial intelligence, trust and safety, cybersecurity, fraud prevention, and platform integrity. Historically, these categories were viewed separately. Increasingly, they are becoming part of the same infrastructure stack.
Information moves faster than ever. Deception moves with it. The companies that help organizations distinguish between the two may become some of the most important infrastructure businesses of the next decade.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is InfoHawk?
InfoHawk is an Austin, Texas-based AI company that detects, analyzes, and neutralizes online deception, scams, impersonation attacks, and fraudulent activity at internet scale.
How much funding did InfoHawk raise?
InfoHawk raised $2.25M in Pre-Seed funding led by Moonshots Capital.
Who founded InfoHawk?
InfoHawk was founded by Rob Leathern, Benjamin Poiesz, and Jamie McCrindle. The leadership team includes Rob Leathern (Founder & CEO), Benjamin Poiesz (Co-Founder), and Jamie McCrindle (Founder & Software Engineer).
What does InfoHawk's technology do?
InfoHawk provides AI-powered APIs that help organizations identify scams, deceptive behavior, impersonation attempts, and online fraud. The platform is designed to detect, analyze, and neutralize deception at internet scale.
What market does InfoHawk operate in?
InfoHawk operates across AI, Trust & Safety, fraud prevention, cybersecurity, identity protection, and platform integrity. Its technology is designed to help organizations maintain trust as digital threats become more sophisticated.
Why does this funding matter?
The funding highlights growing investor interest in technologies that help organizations maintain trust as AI-generated deception becomes more sophisticated and widespread. It also signals increasing attention toward verification infrastructure as a critical layer of the modern AI ecosystem.
