Variance

Risk intelligence that finds, investigates and enforces mission-critical decisions

[Karine Mellata @karine_exe]

Spent the morning with @RepAdamSmith and a strong group on defense + AI. The defense-AI conversation is finally catching up to where America's adversaries already are.

[Variance @trustvariance]

Check out our open roles here: https://t.co/D9ItYBM3bT

[Variance @trustvariance]

We're hiring across the board. Rather than list every role (link below), a few things worth knowing about the company:

1/ We believe AGI can go well, and that requires more defensive technology
built for the enterprises that critical infrastructure runs on.
2/ We're shipping investigative agents at scale, deployed inside some of the world's largest companies.
3/ The work sits at the intersection of frontier research and applied AI.
4/ Fully in-person, opinionated, highly technical team in San Francisco.

If any of this resonates, come build with us.

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

In this episode of Founder Firesides, YC Managing Partner Jared Friedman talks to Karine Mellata (@karine_exe), co-founder of Variance (@trustvariance), who is coming out of stealth and announcing their $21 million Series A.

Variance builds purpose-built AI agents for risk and compliance — automating fraud detection, content review, and identity verification for Fortune 500 companies and platforms like GoFundMe.

They discuss why Variance built in the shadows for three years, detecting state-sponsored fraud rings, and the accident that nearly ended the company.

00:49 – The AI That Keeps the Internet Safe
01:28 – Why They Stayed Secret for 3 Years
02:26 – You’ve Used This Without Knowing It
02:57 – How GoFundMe Stops Scams
03:59 – How Scammers Use Big News Events
05:50 – Checking IDs and Businesses Online
07:44 – How the AI Agents Work
09:28 – The Hardest Problem: Bad Data
12:07 – Why This Only Works Now
14:22 – Catching Organized Fraud Groups
16:26 – Tiny Team, Huge Output
20:18 – How They Met at Apple
22:24 – Getting Their First Customer
24:57 – Recovering from Getting Hit by a Truck
29:36 – Sticking to One Big Idea

[Karine Mellata @karine_exe]

In 2025, $4.4 trillion was spent on illegal activity through the global financial system.

$1.1 trillion went to drug trafficking.
$500 billion went to human trafficking.
$16 billion went to terrorist financing.

We raised $21.5 million to stop that.

[Karine Mellata @karine_exe]

alphabet came after our name, so we have a new name. meet variance!

we took the opportunity to rebrand and double down on what we actually do: deep autonomous investigations for adversarial environments

[Variance @trustvariance]

Last chance to RSVP our Speakeasy Happy Hour with Replicate! Come see what AI founders are building and meet the community

[Replicate @replicate]

Reminder that our AI speakeasy happy hour is tomorrow! We've got a great lineup of speakers - come meet fellow builders and hang out with us.
📍 Mission District, SF
📆 Wednesday, Feb 12th

[Replicate @replicate]

Reminder that our AI speakeasy happy hour is tomorrow! We've got a great lineup of speakers - come meet fellow builders and hang out with us.
📍 Mission District, SF
📆 Wednesday, Feb 12th

[Karine Mellata @karine_exe]

we're hosting a show & tell happy hour for builders in AI with @replicate at their office in the mission. come hang!

[Replicate @replicate]

We're co-hosting a special speakeasy happy hour with @trustintrinsic on Wednesday, February 12th. You'll hear from our stellar guest speakers and meet other AI builders and tinkerers. Come join us in the Mission District in SF!

[Okta @okta]

Okta Ventures portfolio company @TrustIntrinsic is on a mission to create a safer internet by democratizing safety tooling.

We sat down with their Co-Founder and CEO @KarineMellata to learn more about how they work with Okta 📝 https://t.co/erhLmTrU7n

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

Congrats to the team @trustintrinsic on the $3.1M seed!

Founded by a team that worked on solving Trust & Safety issues for Apple's 1 billion users, Intrinsic (YC W23) enables companies to automate these processes, from observability to enforcement. https://t.co/7gCmMTWf3v

[Karine Mellata @karine_exe]

thank you for the feature @TechCrunch, excited for 2024!
@trustintrinsic @mlin_disco
https://t.co/s8HJapUdhm

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

Welcome to YC W23, @karinemellata, @mlin_disco, and @trustintrinsic!

Intrinsic allows companies to build and maintain high-quality content communities, monitor brand safety, and keep their users safe.

Learn more: https://t.co/CAdVERP5iW