> I'd love to fund a startup fixing this problem

I know a great way you can get the funding you need....

In particular, this kind of low-tech spoofing could have been mitigated if the email client had highlighted the fact that the sender’s “name” was nearly identical to the sending address, and therefore likely a phishing email.

This seems quite simple to accomplish - compare the name and email address in the email header and flag based on even regex matches/mismatches. Perhaps a Chrome plugin for gmail to test out ?

There is a startup in this space - Agari (www.agari.com)

there has to be offerings already out there that address that kind of thing, but maybe not. Either way, I agree, tech has the clear edge on this, so long as the rulesets (or whatever parameters are defined) are correct.

Every major fraud vendor has an AML offering. Be it SAS or FICO or startups such as Feedzai. I am building a startup as well but it is hard to determine how effective these products are. Till date I haven't found data that shows how many money laundering cases were caught by these products and how many of those cases were prosecuted. It's not a very transparent industry, so it's super hard to take on the incumbents. This is just based on a few weeks of conversations I've had with some AML and strategy team members, so by no means this is a generalization.