Casap Raised $56 Million to Let AI Agents Work Card Disputes. Experian and Synchrony Bought In

NEW YORK — When a customer disputes a card charge, someone at the bank has to figure out what happened. Casap, a New York startup, has raised $56 million to have AI agents do much of that work.

The company announced a Series B round led by Base10 Partners on Oct. 28, with strategic participation from Experian and Synchrony, according to its press release. Existing investors, including Emergence Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, also took part. The round brings Casap’s total funding to $90 million and comes just over a year after a $25 million Series A. Fortune reported that the company, which launched in 2023, declined to disclose its valuation.

Casap was founded by CEO Shanthi Shanmugam, who previously worked at Robinhood, and Saisi Peters, who previously worked at Chime, according to the release.

What Casap Does

Disputes are a heavy lift for banks. A claim can involve transaction records, merchant evidence, network rules, regulatory deadlines and a frustrated customer, often spread across several systems. Casap’s agents handle the process from intake through investigation, decisions, evidence collection, recovery and customer communication. The company says the agents follow each institution’s own policies, work inside the systems it already uses, escalate decisions that need human judgment and keep a record of every action.

“We started with disputes because it was one of the hardest problems in financial services,” Shanmugam said in the release. “But our ambition was always bigger than disputes.”

The Numbers Behind the Round

Casap says it works with more than 100 banks, credit unions, fintechs and processors, and that revenue has grown tenfold since its Series A, more than double its original target. It did not disclose revenue.

Across its customers, the company reports:

• Up to a 51% reduction in first-party fraud losses
• A 96% chargeback win rate, compared with what it calls a 60% industry average
• Resolution times cut from as long as 90 days to eight days
• 73% of dispute cases resolved through automation, with human oversight retained
• Human processing time cut from 45 minutes to one or two minutes per case

These are company figures and have not been independently verified.

Why the Strategic Investors Matter

The two strategic backers sit close to Casap’s market. Experian, the credit bureau, plans to explore new signals for first-party fraud and consumer intent with Casap. “First-party fraud” refers to cases where the cardholder, not a thief, is behind a questionable claim, sometimes called friendly fraud. The companies say they want to help the industry tell genuine fraud apart from first-party misuse, “especially as agentic commerce increases.”

Synchrony, a large consumer financing company, said dispute handling is a moment of trust with customers. “When a customer disputes a charge, it’s an important moment to get right,” said Kelly Shaw, SVP of Synchrony Ventures, in the release. Emergence Capital, which invested again, wrote in a blog post that Synchrony is working with Casap to bring agents into more parts of the bank.

What’s Next

Casap says customers asked it to move beyond disputes, and it is now bringing its platform to fraud, collections, claims and complex exceptions. The company also uses “forward-deployed” teams that work alongside institutions to redesign operations and get agents into production.

“If all we get from the agentic era is the same outcomes happening faster, we’ve missed a huge opportunity,” Shanmugam said.

Lessons for New York Founders

Start with the hardest workflow. Emergence describes Casap’s approach as starting with disputes because they combine regulatory clocks, real money and evidence scattered across systems. Winning there made it easier to sell the next product to the same customers.

Sell outcomes, not features. Casap pitches chargeback win rates, fraud losses and resolution times rather than software features. In regulated industries, buyers want numbers they can show to their own managers and regulators.

Keep humans in the loop. Casap stresses audit trails and human escalation. For any startup selling AI into banking, health care or insurance, explainability is part of the product.

Pick strategic investors who are also partners. Experian and Synchrony each bring a specific reason to work with Casap, which can mean data, distribution or a reference customer. Founders should be clear about what a strategic investor will actually do, since an investment is not the same as a contract.

Why Merchants Should Pay Attention

Casap works for card issuers, not merchants. But New York shops, restaurants and online sellers live with chargebacks too. If issuers get faster and more consistent at investigating disputes, and better at spotting first-party fraud, the process on the other side of the counter could change as well. Merchants should keep good records of receipts, delivery confirmations and customer communications so they can respond quickly when a dispute arrives.

Entrepreneurs Of New York is an independent publication and is not affiliated with Casap or its investors.