Trustev, a Cork based identity verification company took top honours in the South by Southwest Accelerator event beating more than 1,000 firms from around the world.

Trustev provides "real-time online identity verification" which "eliminates fraud from your e-commerce transactions."

Previous award winners of the award include Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook.

Their system gives them the option of verifying a person through their social network profile, vetting data for authenticity while respecting their privacy.

They can also analyse a person's journey through a website, flagging suspicious activity. 

The company which employs 19 people protects online transactions against fraud by verifying the identity of customers before payment.