Pinch, an AI-based post-purchase intelligence platform focused on returns, refunds, and customer trust, has raised a $5 million total seed round co-led by Dynamo Ventures and Infinity Ventures, with participation from Defined Capital and PayPal Ventures.
The company positions its product as an “AI-driven post-purchase risk operating system” designed to help retailers identify abusive return behavior while preserving a faster, more flexible experience for high-value customers. Pinch says its platform evaluates customer intent, detects emerging abuse patterns, and dynamically orchestrates return and refund decisions across checkout, return initiation, and warehouse operations.
Pinch was founded by former fraud and risk leaders from PayPal, Google, and Simility, led by co-founder and CEO Arthi Rajan Makhija, alongside co-founders Chirag Vaya (CPO) and Jayan Tharayil (COO). The team’s pitch centers on modern return abuse outpacing the static policies and manual review workflows many retailers still rely on, particularly as e-commerce return rates remain elevated and fraud tactics continue to evolve.
Pinch says it targets forms of return and policy abuse including wardrobing, empty-boxing, counterfeit swaps, SKU swapping, and FTID fraud. The company also claims measurable performance in early enterprise deployments, citing one North American premium apparel brand that reduced overall returns by 8% and improved contribution margin by 10% by intervening on abusive behaviors. Pinch also reported automating 80% of return reviews end-to-end for that retailer while enabling instant refunds and upgraded return experiences for trusted VIP customers, contributing to a 20% increase in VIP retention.
The platform includes native integrations aimed at faster deployment for retailers, including Shopify, and is designed to expand across the broader retail technology stack. With the new funding, Pinch plans to accelerate development of its abuse prediction models, warehouse intelligence capabilities, and adaptive return engine, while expanding go-to-market efforts and integrations across order management (OMS), return management (RMS), warehouse management (WMS), and customer experience (CX) systems.
KEY QUOTES:
“Traditional return systems rely on blunt policies, manual investigations, and guesswork that treat every shopper the same by rewarding bad actors and frustrating loyal customers. Abusive behaviors like wardrobing, empty-boxing, counterfeit swaps, and FTID fraud are surging, yet most retailers have no unified view of post-purchase risk. We built Pinch to give retailers an intelligent operating system that continuously learns, adapts, and intervenes in real time. Our platform identifies the abusive 1% without penalizing the loyal 99%, allowing brands to boost margins while actually improving the customer experience.”
Arthi Rajan Makhija, Co-Founder and CEO, Pinch
“While many fraud vendors try to force-fit return and policy abuse into platforms built for other use cases, Pinch built its solution from the ground up for this specific problem, and it shows. Their native Shopify integration meant we could move fast, but what really differentiated them was their customer-first approach, giving us the flexibility to block fraudulent activities while actually enhancing the experience for our most loyal customers. That combination of focused expertise, purpose-built technology, and true partnership is rare to find.”
Rohit Nathany, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Mejuri
“From the beginning, it was clear this team had the domain expertise and technical depth to solve a problem retailers have struggled with for years. They’ve lived inside the fraud infrastructure of major global platforms and understand how fragmented post-purchase data creates blind spots that erode margins. Pinch is a full-stack intelligence layer that unifies signals for cross-checkout, returns, and warehouse operations. The early traction with enterprise retailers has been extraordinary, and what the team has built in such a short time is exceptionally impressive.”
Jon Bradford, Managing Partner, Dynamo Ventures
“Having worked alongside Arthi, Jayan, and Chirag since our PayPal days, I can say firsthand that you couldn’t assemble a better team to solve this problem for merchants. Their rare combination of risk and fraud expertise and customer-first thinking is what sets Pinch apart and why we believe it’s the best product in the market.”
Jay Ganatra, Managing Partner, Infinity Ventures
