Australian startup Apate has taken an unconventional approach to fighting scammers: instead of blocking them, it decided to beat them at their own game. The company has deployed thousands of artificial intelligence (AI) agents that answer scam calls, respond to suspicious messages and emails, and pose as naive victims. TechCrunch reported on October 14, 2026. Founded in 2024 on research from Macquarie University in Sydney, the company is now a Startup Battlefield 200 finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco.
How the Agents Trap Scammers
The main job of Apate's agents is to keep a scammer on the line for as long as possible. To do that, they converse as people of different ages, genders, accents, and languages: each one looks like a trusting ordinary person in the scammer's eyes. The agents answer scam calls, reply to suspicious messages and emails, open phishing links, and join social media groups. In short, they play the role of "victim" on every channel where a scammer might encounter one.
The logic is simple: every minute a scammer spends talking to an artificial conversationalist is a minute they cannot spend deceiving a real person. During the conversation, the agents try to get the scammer talking — extracting valuable information from them: bank accounts, crypto wallet addresses, phone numbers, and malicious websites. This data is then collected and delivered to clients as fraud intelligence.
According to Apate's official website, the company fights scammers with their own weapons: agents engage scammers directly, gather critical intelligence, and disrupt their operations (apate.ai).
Who Needs the Intelligence
The collected intelligence is used by banks, telecom companies, government agencies, and utilities to counter fraud. According to the company's official website, every intercepted scam attempt enriches the intelligence engine: information obtained from the scammers' own mouths gives partners deep insight into evolving threats. In other words, the system simultaneously protects and learns the scammers' new methods.
The Numbers: 17 Years of Wasted Time
According to the company, the agent fleet has so far wasted a combined 17 years of scammers' time across 2.5 million conversations. These figures are based on the company's own reporting and are corroborated by client experience. In other words, each such call no longer reaches an ordinary subscriber but turns into a conversation with an artificial agent.
TPG Telecom has redirected nearly 590,000 scam calls to Apate's agents — calls that no longer reached ordinary subscribers. Publicly reported scam losses at Australia's Commonwealth Bank fell by 76 percent. Another unnamed Australian bank stopped 22 fraud campaigns with the help of the company's external agents. All of this works through the same mechanism: the scammer spends their time on an artificial "victim," while the bank meanwhile gathers information about their accounts and schemes.
Funding and Expansion Plans
In August 2026, Apate raised $8.15 million in seed funding with participation from Lobby Capital, OIF Ventures, Investible, Concept Ventures, and Baobab Ventures. The 20-person company has raised nearly $10 million in total and now plans to open an office in London and expand its presence in the United States. The move signals the company's intent to broaden its client geography: since fraud is a global problem, fighting it knows no borders.
On the Disrupt 2026 Stage
The company was named a finalist in the Startup Battlefield 200 competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 and presented before a panel of venture investor judges at the Moscone West complex in San Francisco through October 15. Reaching the finals among 200 competing startups signals growing interest in the company's anti-fraud approach.
How It Works: Deception and Intelligence at Once
Apate's system operates simultaneously in two directions. The first is distraction: agents answer scam calls, reply to suspicious messages and emails, open phishing links, and join social media groups. The second is intelligence: during conversations, agents try to extract bank accounts, crypto wallet addresses, phone numbers, and malicious websites from the scammers. The collected data is handed to banks, telecom companies, government agencies, and utilities to counter fraud. In this way, every conversation both consumes the scammer's time and yields new information about their schemes.
