Sardine is an AI-powered fraud prevention and compliance platform that combines behavioural biometrics, device intelligence, and machine learning to protect financial transactions in real time. The company has rapidly become one of the most credible names in enterprise fraud prevention, backed by deep domain expertise and a growing suite of agentic AI capabilities.

Founded 2020 | HQ: San Francisco | Funding: $145M+ | Valuation: $660M

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Sardine was founded in 2020 by Soups Ranjan (ex-Revolut Head of Crypto), Aditya Goel, and Zahid Shaikh. The platform serves 300+ enterprise customers across banks, fintechs, crypto platforms, payment processors, and marketplaces globally.

The core proposition is simple but powerful: score risk before the transaction happens. Sardine's device intelligence and behavioural biometrics engine analyses thousands of signals in real time, from mouse movements and keyboard dynamics to device fingerprints and emulator detection, building a risk profile before the user ever clicks "pay." This pre-transaction approach catches fraud that traditional post-transaction systems miss entirely.

The platform covers the full fraud and compliance stack: identity verification, payment fraud detection, AML transaction monitoring, KYC/KYB, and sanctions screening. For teams currently managing multiple point solutions, Sardine offers consolidation into a single platform.

Pre-transaction behavioural intelligence. Most fraud tools score transactions after they happen. Sardine's device intelligence layer analyses user behaviour in real time before the transaction is submitted. This includes detecting emulators, remote desktop tools, and session replay attacks across 70+ attack vectors. The result is earlier detection and fewer false positives.

Sonar AI Agents. The recently launched Sonar platform introduces agentic AI to fraud investigation. Sonar Agents automate complex case management workflows, achieving an 88 percent auto-resolution rate in production deployments. For fraud operations teams drowning in manual reviews, this is a meaningful reduction in workload and response time.

Enterprise-grade customer base. Sardine's 300+ customers include FIS, GoDaddy, Deel, X (formerly Twitter), Blockchain.com, Ramp, and Brex. This is not a startup selling to other startups. The presence of FIS alone signals trust at the infrastructure level of global payments.

Consortium data advantage. By processing data across its entire customer network, Sardine builds consortium intelligence that identifies patterns invisible to any single institution. This network effect strengthens the platform's accuracy as more customers contribute data.

Founding team pedigree. The leadership team brings direct experience from Revolut, Coinbase, and other high-scale risk environments. This is not a team learning fraud prevention on the job.

Premium pricing with no public transparency. Sardine does not publish pricing and operates on a custom enterprise model. For early-stage fintechs or smaller payment processors, the cost may be prohibitive. Expect an enterprise sales cycle.

Implementation complexity. The platform's depth means integration is not trivial. Smaller teams without dedicated fraud and compliance engineers may find the ramp-up steeper than expected. Sardine provides implementation support, but customers should budget time and internal resources accordingly.

Competitive market. Sardine operates alongside strong competitors including Alloy, Unit21, Persona, and Sift. Buyers with existing point solutions will need to evaluate consolidation benefits carefully against switching costs.

Pricing is not publicly disclosed. Sardine operates as an enterprise SaaS platform with custom pricing based on transaction volume and module selection. Deployment is cloud-based via API integration. No free tier or self-serve option is available.

Sardine maintains SOC 2 Type II, PCI-DSS Level 1, GDPR, and CCPA certifications. The platform supports BSA/AML compliance and EU AML directives, making it viable for institutions operating across multiple jurisdictions. SAR and CTR filings are integrated directly into FinCEN.

Overall: 4/5

Sardine is a top-tier fraud prevention platform for organisations operating at scale. The combination of pre-transaction behavioural intelligence, agentic AI investigation, and comprehensive compliance tooling makes it one of the most complete offerings in the market. The founding team's pedigree and the enterprise customer base provide strong validation. It is best suited for mid-to-large financial institutions, payment processors, and fintechs with meaningful transaction volume and the budget to match. Smaller teams should evaluate whether the depth justifies the cost and complexity. With the Sonar Agents now in production, Sardine is pushing the frontier of what automated fraud operations can look like.

Try Sardine: sardine.ai