Yinglian Xie and Fang Yu

Yinglian Xie and Fang Yu, the scientists behind DataVisor, the AI risk and fraud detection company last valued at more than $250M.

How It All Started:

► Xie ranked first out of 140 computer science students at Peking University and then earned her computer science Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University focusing on connecting online security threats.
► Yu interned with the founding team of Microsoft Research Asia during her undergraduate studies at Fudan University and then completed her Ph.D. at University of California, Berkeley in internet security.
► Growing up just 30 minutes apart in China, they met at Microsoft Research's Silicon Valley lab, collaborating for 7 years on security and bot detection research.

Entrepreneurship Journey:

In 2013, Xie and Yu transformed their research into action by co-founding DataVisor.

► 2015-2018: Secured first clients Yelp and Momo for fake review detection; raised $14.5M initially but struggled with strategy despite additional $40M funding.
► 2022: Recognized the rapid digitization of financial systems and pivoted towards becoming a ‘one-stop shop‘ for fraud prevention.
► Completely redesigned their algorithms to protect the entire "customer lifecycle," which meant it safeguards businesses from the moment a customer signs up for a service to every transaction they make.

Success and Forbes Recognition:

In 2024, Data Visor’s revenue surged 67% to $50 million. Major customers like SoFi, Affirm, and Marqeta now rely on their AI to stop fraud before it happens.

And just last month, DataVisor landed on Forbes’ Fintech 50 list. 😎

I find Xie and Yu's journey truly inspiring and am impressed by both their technical brilliance and entrepreneurial resilience.