Insider Brief
- InfoHawk, an AI platform built to detect and neutralize online deception at scale, has raised $2.25 million in pre-seed funding led by Moonshots Capital, founded by Rob Leathern, Ben Poiesz, and Jamie McCrindle to combat a fraud ecosystem in which consumers globally lost an estimated $442 billion to scams in 2025.
- The platform combines advanced content detection with deep infrastructure mapping delivered via API, targeting a threat landscape where AI tools are accelerating scam operations — enabling fraudsters to clone legitimate sites and assets in seconds and deepfake enterprise employees at scale.
- The round attracted a notable angel cohort including former FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, AppNexus founder Brian O’Kelley, former Meta ads head Rob Goldman, GitHub CTO Vlad Fedorov, and former Google VP of ads safety Scott Spencer, reflecting deep platform and regulatory expertise among the company’s backers.
PRESS RELEASE — InfoHawk, the AI platform built to detect and neutralize deception at internet scale, has announced it has closed a $2.25 million pre-seed financing round, led by Moonshots Capital. InfoHawk was founded by Rob Leathern, Ben Poiesz, and Jamie McCrindle.
Fraud and scams have grown from an internet nuisance into one of the defining threats of the digital age. If scams were a country, it would rank around 30th in the world by GDP — bigger than Austria, Colombia, or Singapore. Consumers globally lost an estimated $442 billion to scams in 2025 (GASA.org). And the global trade in counterfeit goods is estimated at an additional $467 billion per year.
AI tools are supercharging scams, by making them faster & more automated, allowing fraudsters to easily copy legitimate sites, videos or assets in seconds. Brands are being impersonated, and enterprise employees are being deepfaked or their accounts compromised.
Scammers operate across jurisdictions and platforms, making attribution and enforcement nearly impossible without specialized intelligence and infrastructure. The result is a fraud ecosystem that is faster, cheaper, and harder to detect than ever before.
InfoHawk is Tackling These Problems
InfoHawk detects, analyzes and neutralizes online deception at scale. Delivered by highly performant APIs, InfoHawk’s software combines advanced content detection with deep infrastructure mapping to help enterprises protect their users from online scams and digital fraud.
InfoHawk’s financing round was led by Moonshots Capital, a seed-stage venture firm:
“We invest in extraordinary leaders solving hard problems, and InfoHawk fits that bill perfectly. Rob, Ben, and Jamie bring two decades of experience from inside the largest platforms. They understand both how this ecosystem works and how to break it for the bad guys. With AI now turbocharging scams, InfoHawk is building exactly the kind of independent, data-driven infrastructure the internet needs.”
— Kelly Perdew, Founding Partner, Moonshots Capital
Moonshots is joined by angel investors with experience building, defending, and regulating at-scale online platforms. Investors in this round include former two-term Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz, as well as Brian O’Kelley (founder of AppNexus), Rob Goldman (former head of Ads at Meta), James Walker (founder and CEO of Centigrade), Scott Spencer (former VP of ads safety and privacy at Google), Vlad Fedorov (CTO of GitHub), Nikila Srinivasan (former VP of Product for WhatsApp) and others.
About Moonshots Capital
Moonshots Capital is an early-stage venture firm investing in extraordinary leadership building category-defining companies across critical technology sectors, including dual-use, cybersecurity, fintech, AI, and defense innovation. Founded in 2014 by West Point graduates and military veterans Kelly Perdew and Craig Cummings, Moonshots has backed 131 companies to date, with 33 exits and 18 unicorns. Learn more at: https://moonshotscapital.com
About InfoHawk
InfoHawk is an AI platform built to detect, analyze, and neutralize online deception at internet scale. Contact: Rob Leathern, (571) 736–2469, or https://infohawk.com
