Company Overview
Company Name: Pinch AI
Founded: October, 2023
Headquarters: San Jose, California
Website: https://www.pinch.ai/
Founders: Arthi Makhija (CEO), Jayan Tharayil (COO), and Chirag Vaya (CPO)
Product Summary
Pinch AI is an AI-powered platform that predicts post-purchase buyer behavior and offers return policy customization, real-time abuse insights, and fraud detection capabilities. It adapts return policies automatically, flags risky behavior, and provides insights to protect profits and improve operations.
Problems Solved
Primary Focus Areas:
Return Abuse (wardrobing, FTID, empty boxing)
Refund Fraud
Reseller Abuse
Target Market
Ideal Customer Profile:
Mid-market to large enterprise e-commerce retailers
Specific verticals: apparel, footwear, consumer electronics, home appliances, luxury, and auto-part segments
Retailers doing $50M+ in sales annually
Customer Evidence
Notable Customers:
Shop Akira
Manhead
Featured Case Study:
Before Pinch AI: Return processing was 100% manual and reliant on sifting through data sources across Shopify, their RMS, Warehouse information and CX tools. They had little to no proactive signals that helped them identify return abuse.
After Pinch AI: Customer has automated 100% of all flagged abusive return cases with Pinch helping detect upwards of 50 basis points of abusive GMV.
Technology & Integration
Signal Sources: Buyer identity, order data, item profile, payment data, shipping data, returns data, disposition data, device data, behavior biometrics, network intelligence
Fraud Stack Position
Primary Functions:
Post-Transaction & Fulfillment
Device and Location Fingerprinting
User Behavior Analysis
Bot Detection
Not Designed For:
Identity & Onboarding
Login & Account Access
Real-time Transaction Screening
Integration Method: App Install, API, JS / SDK
Common Integrations:
Ecommerce platforms
Returns Management solutions
Warehouse Management Solutions
Customer Experience Platforms
Market Context
Market Size: More than a $100B is lost to return abuse alone every year. Processing a return can cost companies ~60% of the item's original price.
Team Background:
Leadership Experience: Team of technologists with extensive experience in building and scaling risk and abuse mitigation platforms at Google and PayPal where they built out market leading fraud solutions adopted by tens of thousands of merchants
Backing: Backed by commerce, fintech, fraud and abuse experts from funds and companies such as Infinity Ventures, PayPal ventures, PayPal, Google and more
Market Philosophy:
Common Market Problems Identified:
One size fits all return policies
Assuming payment fraud solutions can be extended to manage return abuse
Measuring health of their business based on gross sales only
Summary
Who Are Their Best Customers?
Pinch AI serves mid-market to large enterprise e-commerce retailers, specifically those in apparel, footwear, consumer electronics, home appliances, luxury, and auto-part segments. Their reference customers include Shop Akira and Manhead.
What Makes Pinch AI Different?
Pinch AI is purpose-built for post-transaction return fraud detection rather than extending payment fraud solutions to manage return abuse. The company holds the belief that "You need more than consortium data" and focuses on return-specific behavioral signals and graduated customer experiences.
Features, Functionalities, and Benefits Based on vendor submission, Pinch AI delivers an end-to-end return abuse and fraud prevention platform that can be invoked across three critical points in the customer journey:
At Checkout: Pinch AI can enhance return and refund terms for VIP customers while also giving brands the option to cancel or hold fulfillment on high-risk orders before they ship.
At Return Initiation: The platform enforces dynamic return policies directly through the retailer’s RMS, ensuring tailored rules are applied consistently to mitigate abuse.
At the Warehouse: Pinch AI’s scores and recommendations flow into warehouse management systems, enabling operations teams to process returns faster, adjust SOPs for flagged cases, and minimize losses from risky returns.
Beyond journey integration, Pinch AI provides a set of advanced, no-code tools and AI-powered features:
AI-Powered Return Abuse Detection: Identifies wardrobing, FTID, empty boxing, counterfeiting, reseller abuse, and other nuanced forms of return abuse
Dynamic Return Policy Adaptation: Automatically adjusts return policy enforcement based on customer behavior and intent signals
Intent Detection: Surfaces insights behind customer return intent quickly
Graduated Customer Experiences: Provides different treatment levels without technical overhead
Multi-System Integration: Works with e-commerce platforms, RMS, warehouse management, and CX platforms
Real-Time Analytics: Delivers margin protection and operational cost reduction
Core Platform Features:
No-Code Workflow Editor - empowers operations teams to configure workflows without engineering lift.
AI Widget Studio - customizable widgets for embedding return intelligence in different systems.
AI Copilot - assists operations with reviews, model explainability, and guided decision-making.
AI Social Profiler - enriches risk scoring with social and behavioral profiling.
Graph Network & Link Analysis Tools – investigative capabilities for uncovering abuse rings.
Customer 360 - unified, cross-system view of each shopper’s profile and behavior.