Success Editor Team
Neha Narkhede, the trailblazing co-founder of Confluent and a leading figure in open-source software, is making waves once again in the world of enterprise technology. With her latest venture, Oscilar, she’s turning her focus toward a critical fintech challenge — AI-driven fraud detection. In 2025, Neha continues to be a strong and influential voice in Silicon Valley and India, championing women in tech, innovation in enterprise software, and leadership in the open-source community.
From Apache Kafka to Confluent: Laying the Foundation
Neha first rose to prominence as the co-creator of Apache Kafka, the widely adopted open-source distributed event streaming platform. Her contributions at LinkedIn led to the creation of Kafka, which later became the cornerstone of Confluent, a company she co-founded in 2014. Under her leadership, Confluent evolved into a multibillion-dollar enterprise, enabling real-time data streaming for global organizations across industries.
Her success with Confluent placed her among the top female founders in enterprise tech, earning accolades such as Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech and recognition by MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35.
Enter Oscilar: Revolutionizing Fintech Fraud Detection
With her new AI startup, Oscilar, Neha is tackling one of fintech’s biggest pain points — fraud prevention. Oscilar leverages AI and machine learning to build intelligent fraud detection systems that adapt in real-time. As financial institutions face increasingly sophisticated threats, Oscilar offers an agile and scalable approach to identifying anomalies and stopping fraudulent activity before it impacts users.
The platform uses agentic AI, behavioral analytics, and real-time data ingestion to deliver proactive fraud intelligence. This is a natural extension of Neha’s expertise in stream processing and real-time systems, applied now to one of the most urgent problems in digital finance.
A Role Model for Women in Enterprise Tech
Neha Narkhede’s journey from engineer to founder and now a serial entrepreneur has made her an inspiration for aspiring women in STEM, especially in traditionally male-dominated sectors like enterprise software and AI. In 2025, she remains a vocal advocate for diversity in tech leadership, often mentoring young founders and speaking at global tech conferences.
Her work also underscores the growing role of Indian-origin women in leading the next wave of innovation from both Silicon Valley and India.
Looking Ahead: Impact and Innovation
Neha’s move from Confluent to Oscilar reflects a broader trend of applying open-source thinking and real-time data capabilities to new industries. As financial fraud becomes more complex, Oscilar’s AI-powered solutions could redefine how banks, fintechs, and digital platforms protect users and data.
With her track record of building impactful technologies and scaling global businesses, Neha Narkhede is once again positioned at the cutting edge of enterprise tech.
