Núclea acquires anti-fraud intelligence firm Data Rudder

Núclea revealed to Valor on Wednesday (8) that it has agreed to acquire anti-fraud intelligence company Data Rudder. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, and the deal is still pending Central Bank approval. Argentina’s Cocos Capital acquires Warren Investimentos Brazil fintech Naskar under probe sells operations in R$1.2bn deal Cyber incidents rise as another Brazilian fintech is targeted Data Rudder serves more than 200 institutions—including 60% of Brazil’s largest banking-as-a-service (BaaS) providers—and monitors roughly R$40 billion in transactions every month. Rafaela Helbing and Thais Nolasco founded the company in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, in 2020. Once the deal closes, Data Rudder’s employees and systems will be folded into Núclea gradually. The teams will stay in place, and founders Helbing and Nolasco will remain in leadership roles. The acquisition brings Núclea the DeLorean Antifraude Pix platform, which monitors Pix transactions in real time, along with DeLorean Antifraude Transacional, which analyzes behavioral patterns in TED wire transfers, bank payment slips, and card transactions. Also included: Watchlist, which flags signs of fraud in card transactions; DataBusters, a tool for sharing fraud intelligence; and Monitora PLD, which monitors for potential money laundering. Núclea says the deal will expand its footprint in fraud prevention and shrink the gap between spotting fraudulent activity and freezing the assets involved. The company estimates that combining the two operations could push asset recovery rates as high as 46% of requests, up from less than 10% across the market today. “Fighting financial crime takes coordination across every player in the ecosystem. By combining capabilities and streamlining how information flows, we make dispute resolution more efficient and help build a more resilient, collaborative system,” Núclea CEO André Daré said in a statement. “Fraud is a dynamic, interconnected problem. By pairing transaction intelligence with structured recovery processes, we’re strengthening prevention and making our work more effective through integrated, data-driven analysis of the ecosystem,” Data Rudder CEO Rafaela Helbing said in a separate statement. The acquisition lands as Núclea marks 25 years as an infrastructure provider for Brazil’s banking and payments system. “As we celebrate 25 years, we’re still looking ahead and investing in where our business is headed. [...] We’re growing as a responsible, sustainable company— strengthening systemic competitiveness across the value chain, sharpening risk management, and supporting fraud mitigation across the ecosystem in ways that deliver real benefits for Brazilian society,” Daré said. Formerly known as the Interbank Payments Chamber (CIP), the company started out as a nonprofit association of financial institutions before converting to a corporation in 2022, when it took the name Núclea. Its shareholder base includes 48 financial institutions, among them Brazil’s largest banks: Itaú, Bradesco, Santander, Banco do Brasil, and Caixa Econômica Federal. Núclea serves more than 800 clients and processed over 40.6 billion transactions worth more than R$18.7 trillion in 2025. The company provides infrastructure for services like loan portability, payroll account portability, credit history, loan portfolio transfers, and payroll-deductible lending, alongside fraud prevention, data analytics, asset registration, payment settlement, and asset tokenization services. André Daré, CEO of Núclea Celso Doni/Valor