Karine Mellata

Karine Mellata is the Co-Founder of Variance, an artificial intelligence startup focused on online safety and risk management, based in San Francisco, California. A participant in the Y Combinator Winter 2023 batch, she recently helped the software company secure a $21.5 million Series A funding round to expand its core operations. Variance, formerly known as Intrinsic, currently employs 12 people and develops automated fraud detection and compliance agents for major enterprise clients, including GoFundMe and various Fortune 500 financial services firms. Prior to launching her own venture, Mellata built machine learning and data engineering infrastructure for trust and safety teams at Apple and Discord to combat large-scale platform abuse. Her professional background centers on developing advanced machine learning tools to mitigate digital fraud, verify user identities, and improve compliance infrastructure across the broader technology sector.