Irish firm makes ‘Forbes’ list of ‘hottest global start-ups’

Cork-based fraud protection firm Trustev has been named as one of the "hottest global start-ups of 2013" by Forbes magazine.

The Irish start-up, founded by Pat Phelan and Chris Kennedy, verifies the identity of online shoppers by generating a digital fingerprint through various social media accounts which prove you are who you claim to be.

The firm last night announced a $500,000 investment from Notion Capital. This further extends Trustev’s October closure of a $3 million (€2.2 million) seed round to fund expansion in the US.

Mr Phelan said the latest investment of $500,000 will be used to accelerate the development of Trustev’s anti-fraud and identity verification technology for e-commerce merchants.

Among the other startups featured on the Forbes list is Berlin’s EyeEm, which saw a 900 per cent increase in users of its photo-sharing app from 1 million to 10 million this year

Lebanon-based Instabeat, which developed an innovative piece of hardware that straps onto a swimmers goggles to track heart rate, calories burned and number of laps, also made the list of seven start-ups.