Digital Identity Verification Specialist Socure Partners with Payments Innovator Alacriti

Digital Identity Verification Specialist Socure Partners with Payments Innovator Alacriti
  • Socure partnered with payments company Alacriti to bring identity fraud prevention to instant payments.
  • The partnership comes as the transition toward instant payments gains steam in the U.S.
  • Socure most recently demoed its digital identity verification technology at FinovateFall 2017.

Socure and Alacriti have teamed up to bring third-party and synthetic identity fraud prevention to instant payments.

The partnership will enable financial institutions to use end-to-end, turnkey, instant payment solutions with the benefit of integrated fraud prevention. This will benefit FIs using Alacriti’s Cosmos Payments Hub, which enables institutions to offer their customers modern money movement. The partnership also supports Alacriti’s Orbipay AIQ, a cloud-based machine learning-based fraud prevention solution powered by Socure’s Sigma Fraud suite. Orbipay AIQ helps FIs manage the specific fraud and risk challenges that are associated with instant payments. The technology can be used to augment existing fraud detection systems or as a standalone solution. Orbipay AIQ works for both payment rails such as The Clearing House’s RTP network, the FedNow Service, and Visa Direct. The technology is also compatible with more conventional rails like ACH and Wires.

“Our partnership with Alacriti protects financial institutions and their account holders from predatory fraudsters, improving their trust and confidence when making faster payments transactions,” Socure VP of Business Development Evan Rabinowitz said. “The joining of a comprehensive identity verification and fraud prevention platform with the Cosmos Payments Hub helps financial institutions safely deliver payments innovation quickly and with less risk to market.”

Socure made its Finovate debut in 2013 and most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall in 2017. This year, the company teamed up with Okta to bring identity verification products to government IT solutions provider Carahsoft. Also, in March, Socure won “Best Identity Verification Solution” at the FinTech Breakthrough Awards for a second year in a row.

The company has raised more than $741 million in funding. Socure’s investors include T. Rowe Price, Accel, and Capital One Ventures. Last month, Socure announced a $95 million credit facility. J.P. Morgan, Silicon Valley Bank, and KeyBanc Capital Markets provided the financing.

“Socure is in an exceptional position to solve what organizations and government agencies need most today – accurate and inclusive real-time identity verification without costly fraud and friction within the customer experience,” Socure founder and CEO Johnny Ayers said when the credit facility was announced in March. “With this facility further strengthening our balance sheet, Socure is in a tremendous position to leave the recession much stronger than when we went into it while continuing to distance ourselves from the competition through investments in new solutions, verticals, and strategic acquisitions.”


Photo by Element5 Digital

Socure and Middesk Forge Industry-First Integrated KYB/KYC Verification Solution

Socure and Middesk Forge Industry-First Integrated KYB/KYC Verification Solution
  • Identity verification and fraud solution provider Socure is teaming up with business verification and identity platform Middesk.
  • The partnership is the first instance in which two Know Your Business (KYB) and Know Your Customer (KYC0 innovators have created an integrated, end-to-end business verification solution.
  • Socure, a Finovate alum since 2013, has raised more than $646 million in funding.

Digital identity verification and fraud solutions provider Socure announced an industry-first partnership this week with business verification and identity platform Middesk. The integration combines Socure’s real-time, predictive analytics identity verification and fraud prevention solution with Middesk’s business entity verification technology to enhance the ability of B2B companies to accurately verify their customers. The collaboration marks the first time that two innovators in the Know Your Business (KYB) and Know Your Customer (KYC) space have created an integrated solution for end-to-end business verification.

“With our partnership, B2B companies will achieve an incremental lift in their business due to Socure’s industry-leading accuracy and coverage of our identity verification and fraud risk prediction solutions,” Socure CEO and founder Johnny Ayers said. “This accuracy leads to the auto-approval of more good consumers and creates increased conversion rates and a higher assurance of onboarding trustworthy business customers.”

The integration will help B2B companies verify not only the details of new business customers such as name, address, and tax ID, but also the personal details for that business’ beneficial owners. The addition of Socure’s digital identity verification and fraud platform will ease and streamline the process through which Middesk customers can authenticate the associated beneficial owners of the businesses they register and onboard. The partnership could be a major boon for businesses in regulated industries – including banks, financial services companies, and insurance companies – that require a high degree of business identity verification. The collaboration also should prove helpful to entities such as B2B marketplaces that serve gig economy businesses and entrepreneurs who often have smaller or more incomplete data footprints that can make KYB more challenging.

Middesk co-founder and CEO Kyle Mack said that the partnership would help Middesk customers who are eager to tackle the issues of identity verification. “Customers can now leverage the Socure integration to validate personal attributes of beneficial owners,” Mack said. “Additionally, Socure delivers key risk insights that determine the likelihood that someone’s identity is legitimate, and applicants are who they claim to be, which provides even more value to our customers in uncertain, but growing market conditions.”

Founded in 2012 and making its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateFall, Socure has grown into a leading identity verification solution provider. With more than 1,000 financial institutions, government agencies, and enterprises using on the company’s verification technology, Socure reported in May that it had reached record customer growth of 236%, and currently includes companies such as EarnUp and fellow Finovate alum Sezzle among its financial services clients. Also in May, Socure introduced new Chief Financial Officer Krish Venkataraman.

“I’ve long had the sense that, no matter what type of business you’re in, solving for identity verification was critical to operating in the next phase of the internet,” Venkataraman said when his appointment was announced. “What’s really becoming clear is that the line of demarcation between a real identity and how that identity operates in the digital world no longer exists. A person’s identity is how they access everything they want and need to do, and today, those things almost all happen online.” Venkataraman called Socure “the identity verification layer for the Internet.”

Headquartered in New York City, Socure has raised more than $646 million in funding. The company’s investors include Accel, T. Rowe Price, and ff Venture Capital.


Photo by Pixabay

Socure Locks in $450 Million in Series E Funding; Earns Valuation of $4.5 Billion

Socure Locks in $450 Million in Series E Funding; Earns Valuation of $4.5 Billion

Digital identity verification and fraud solution provider Socure has scored $450 million in what the company called a “significantly oversubscribed” Series E funding round. The investment comes just seven months after the company’s $100 million Series D round, and boosts Socure’s valuation to $4.5 billion.

“With this additional capital, we will substantially increase our level of commercial velocity and intensity in solving complex customer and societal problems, while maintaining our Day 0 founder’s mentality and continuing to attract the market’s best product, data science, and engineering minds to join our already incredibly talented team,” Socure founder and CEO Johnny Ayers said.

The Series E was led by Accel – along with funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. New investors Bain Capital Ventures and Tiger Global joined existing investors Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and Sorenson Ventures in the round, as well. Socure’s total equity funding stands at $647 million.

The investment gives Socure the highest valuation of any private company in the identity verification market. The company’s identity verification and fraud-fighting platform Socure ID+ has gained meaningful traction in the enterprise, with four of the five largest banks and seven of the 10 largest credit card issuers embracing the technology. Add to this a host of major fintechs, Buy Now Pay Later firms, investment management companies, and crypto exchanges. Socure has enjoyed 5x year-over-year bookings growth, more than 2x year-over-year customer growth, and five consecutive quarters of record year-over-year revenue growth.

Additionally, Socure achieved a net retention rate of 179% which the company said was due to “near-zero attrition” as Socure’s enterprise customers deployed multiple Socure solutions across divisions at an increasing rate. The result has been to make Socure an all-in-one platform for fraud prevention, KYC, AML, and document verification in the enterprise.

“When you’re a market leader, you move from attacking and replacing the incumbents repeatedly as you earn your seat at the table to truly being a strategic partner to many of the best companies in the world,” Ayers said.

Socure will use the new capital to further invest in product innovation, enter new markets such as telehealth, gaming, e-commerce marketplaces, and the public sector, and add talent to the Socure team – especially in the areas of product development, data science, and engineering. The company also will use the investment to enhance both its customer consortium data and automated ID+ platform to address payment and first party fraud as effectively as it currently combats third party and synthetic fraud.

Founded in 2012 and making its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateFall, Socure has had a busy autumn in 2021, launching new fraud prevention solutions and adding a new Chief People Officer in September, plus reaching a 750 customer milestone early in October. Also in October, Socure announced a major commitment to deliver identity verification solutions to the public sector market, appointing Matt Thompson as its new General Manager of Public Sector Solutions.

“Many agencies lack the industry experience required to effectively manage identity verification and reduce fraud losses in the midst of accelerated digital transformation due to the pandemic,” Thompson explained. “Furthermore, the gaps within legacy identity solutions were exposed leaving numerous eligible people waiting extended periods of time for their benefits while enabling fraudsters to manipulate these same benefits at an unprecedented level. We are committed to solving this challenge for government agencies.”


Photo by Tara Winstead from Pexels

Socure Secures Strategic Investment from Capital One Ventures

Socure Secures Strategic Investment from Capital One Ventures

Digital trust and identity verification innovator Socure announced today that it has received a strategic investment from Capital One Ventures, Capital One Financial Corporation’s venture capital division. The amount of the investment was not disclosed, but it adds to the $196 million the company has raised to date. This sum includes a $100 million Series D round in March, which gave Socure more than a billion dollar valuation.

The company plans to use the additional financing to fuel its expansion across a range of verticals including financial services, healthcare, e-commerce, on-demand services and online gaming. Named one of America’s Best Startup Employers by Forbes for the past two years in a row, Socure will also use the funding to help add to its workforce.

“We are thrilled to add Capital One to our expanding roster of strategic investors. We were fortunate to have met the venture as well as fraud and identity teams early on in Socure’s journey,” Socure co-founder and CEO Johnny Ayers said. “We admired their focus and discipline as a data science and analytics-driven company and channeled that as we built Socure.”

A Finovate alum since 2013, Socure offers a real-time predictive analytics platform that applies artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques with trusted online/offline data intelligence from email, phone, address, IP, device, velocity, and the broader internet to verify identities in real time. Socure’s ID+ product suite offers passive identity verification and fraud detection solutions in addition to a physical document verification solution, DocV, which provides enterprises with the ability to verify the authenticity of government-issued IDs while accurately associating that ID document with other, relevant PII. The addition of DocV gave the platform the ability to provide a wider range of identity verification methods all in a single, integrated solution and API. Socure notes that it achieves fraud capture rates of 90%, increases in auto enrollment by up to 94%, and an 8x to 10x reduction in false positives.

In April, digital wagering platform DraftKings enhanced its compliance technology with Socure’s Intelligent KYC and Global Watchlist with Monitoring solutions. Also in April, Socure announced that it would provide identity verification services as part of Microsoft Azure Active Director verifiable credentials. We profiled Socure co-founder Ayers last fall shortly after he took over as CEO.


Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels

Identity Verification Specialist Socure Scores $100 Million in New Funding

Identity Verification Specialist Socure Scores $100 Million in New Funding

Digital identity verification company Socure announced that it has secured $100 million in Series D funding in a round led by Accel and featuring participation from the investment divisions of Citi and Wells Fargo. The investment brings the company’s total capital to more than $196 million.

“We are now more confident than ever that we will be the first company to eliminate identity fraud while unlocking complete and fully-automated coverage of every good ID,” Socure CEO Johnny Ayers said.

Also participating in the round were Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Flint Capital, Strategic Capital, Synchrony, Sorenson, and Two Sigma Ventures. And while a specific new valuation was not included in the funding announcement, Socure’s Ayers hinted at the lofty level – and more – in congratulating his team on the company’s success.

“Reaching unicorn status is a testament to our dedicated and talented team which we are looking forward to rapidly scaling to meet demand,” Ayers said. “We are incredibly grateful for the chance to innovate and partner to solve this problem with some of the greatest companies in the world and are energized for the opportunities that lay ahead for Socure, especially as we make our march to a potential IPO.”

A Finovate alum since 2013, the company demonstrated its digital-to-physical identity verification technology at our fall conference in 2017. Socure’s predictive analytics platform marries AI and machine learning with trusted on- and offline data intelligence from a wide variety of sources to verify identities in real time. Operating in a number of verticals ranging from financial services and eCommerce to gaming and telecom, Socure has more than 350 customers including three of the top five banks, six of the top 10 card issuers, and more than 75 of the most innovative fintechs including Varo Money, Chime, and Stash.

More recently, Socure announced a partnership with advisory, tax, and assurance firm Baker Tilly that has since established that Socure’s Intelligent KYC product meets “and creates additional assurance” in providing USA PATRIOT Act compliance. Earlier in the year, Socure had announced that Intelligent KYC would be made available to digital gaming operators in eleven states.


Photo by Gnist Design from Pexels

Here’s Johnny! Socure Appoints Co-Founder Ayers as New CEO

Here’s Johnny! Socure Appoints Co-Founder Ayers as New CEO

Say hello to Socure’s new CEO! Then again, you’ve probably already met.

Johnny Ayers, who co-founded the identity verification company with Sunil Madhu in 2012 and has since served as both Director of Business Development and Chief Product Officer for the New York-based firm, has been named CEO. Ayers will take over from Tom Thimot, who joined the company as CEO in the spring of 2018.

“I am extremely grateful to Tom for his commitment to expanding Socure, building the organization, and serving as a mentor over the past 2+ years,” Ayers said in a statement. “His leadership skills and wealth of experience in running technology companies have been extremely instrumental in building the phenomenal work culture and team here at Socure, while laying the groundwork for our next phase of growth.”

Socure grew significantly under Thimot’s leadership. In 2018, the company gained ISO certification for privacy and security controls, and launched its Aida (Authentic Identity Agent) bot to provide real-time validation and authentication of digital identities. Socure also forged partnerships with companies like workflow management specialist Alloy and digital banking services provider (and fellow Finovate alum) Q2. Socure was also the target of robust investment in the Thimot Era, securing $65 million in funding – more than half the company’s total capital – in the past two years alone.

“In my time as CEO, we together built a world class, diverse team, added hundreds of customers, and increased the company valuation significantly,” Thimot said in the company’s announcement. “I also had the privilege of spending a lot of time working with and mentoring Johnny. Now it is time to pass the baton. As the original co-founder, Johnny is poised to take Socure to the next level by offering the right products and penetrating the right markets so that Socure is truly built to last. I’m very excited to see what’s next.”

The leadership shift comes at an opportune time for Socure, with interest in digital identity security on the rise during the global health crisis. Socure’s predictive analytics platform leverages AI and machine learning to analyze trusted on- and offline data intelligence from a wide variety of sources – including email, phone, and Internet – to offer real-time identity verification. As Chief Product Officer, Ayers led innovation in Socure’s Socure ID+ platform, helping bring a trio of expansions – Intelligent KYC, DocV, and Sigma Synthetic Fraud – to the company’s flagship solution.

A Finovate alum since 2013, Socure now includes four of the top five U.S. banks, eight of the top ten credit card issuers, and more than 100 of the largest fintechs among its customers and partners. The company was named a “Cool Vendor” this year in the AI for Banking and Investments category by Gartner.


Photo by Monica Silvestre from Pexels

Socure Secures Funding from Citi and Wells Fargo

Socure Secures Funding from Citi and Wells Fargo

In a round led by Sorenson Ventures, identity verification innovator Socure has locked in $35 million in new funding. The investment, which takes the company’s total capital to $96 million, featured the participation of three new funders: Citi Ventures, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, and MVB Financial Corp, as well as existing investors Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and Flint Capital. Socure said the additional funding will support the firm’s growth objectives and enable the company to add to its platform’s machine learning capabilities.

“We are grateful to have had significant investor interest despite the current economic environment, and are proud to have taken less money than was on the table,” Socure CEO Tom Thimot said. “As we continue to build on our position as the leader in Day Zero identity, we are prioritizing investment in new verticals, talent, products, and capabilities.”

The investment reflects a growing importance on identity verification at a time when more and more individuals and businesses are relying on digital channels. Companies with identity verification solutions that can quickly – i.e., in real-time – establish that individuals are who they say they are and do so with as few mistakes as possible will become increasingly valuable partners for businesses looking to maximize engagement and commerce via digital channels.

Socure’s funding news comes just a few months after the company unveiled its latest digital identity verification solution, Intelligent KYC. The company’s technology accelerates customer acquisition and boosts auto-approval rates by leveraging advanced graph analysis and machine learning to verify identity in real-time. With partners ranging from banks and lenders to telecommunications firms and insurance companies, Socure enables its clients to achieve 85% fraud capture rates, a 90% increase in auto enrollments, and up to 10x reduction in false positives.

Most recently demonstrating its technology at FinovateFall in 2017, Socure was founded five years earlier by Sunil Madhu and Johnny Ayers (SVP). Named one of Forbes’ Top 25 Machine Learning Startups to Watch, and recognized by Gartner as a Cool Vendor in AI for Banking and Investment Services this spring, the company added a document verification module, DocV, to its Socure ID+ platform earlier this month.

Socure is headquartered in New York, and maintains offices in San Diego, San Jose, and Chennai, India.


Photo by spemone from Pexels

Socure Unveils New Digital Identity Verification Solution Intelligent KYC

Socure Unveils New Digital Identity Verification Solution Intelligent KYC
Photo by Alexander Vayionis from Pexels

Digital identity verification specialist Socure has introduced a new solution to help accelerate and scale customer acquisition. Intelligent KYC, launched last week, leverages advanced graph analytics, unsupervised machine learning, and a sizable volume of data sources to give businesses higher auto-approval rates compared to legacy identity verification systems, as well as fewer manual reviews.

“In the digital-first world, compliance teams need hyper-accuracy in their use of KYC tools without introducing more friction for customers or costly reviews for their operations teams,” Socure CEO Tom Thimot explained. “Intelligent KYC is the industry’s most sophisticated KYC solution and will push our clients far beyond check-box compliance.”

Available as both an individual solution as well as part of an end-to-end integrated, identity fraud engine, Intelligent KYC is especially suited for institutions serving underserved populations – from millennials with thin credit files to newly-arrived immigrants with no domestic credit record. Intelligent KYC leverages machine learning to access more than 310 million entities and three billion records from a wide variety of authoritative sources including credit header and inquiry, utility and telecommunications companies, and more.

Writing about the concept of Intelligent KYC on the Socure blog, privacy, data security, and fintech attorney and company advisor Annie C. Bai noted the emphasis that Socure’s solution places on precision accuracy in the initial phases of the KYC process. This accuracy, Bai explained, “is not only valuable for initial results but has downstream benefits as the cornerstone of understanding the customer.” Bai highlighted diversity in data, automated analytics, and user empowerment as three key differentiators between traditional legacy KYC and Socure’s latest offering.

“Socure’s market-leading identity fraud scores, (enable) an automated 90% customer acceptance rate, a 95% fraud capture rate, a 10% reduction in false positives, and over 50% reduction in manual reviews,” Bai wrote.

Founded in 2012 by Sunil Madhu, Socure most recently demonstrated its digital identity verification and fraud protection solution, Socure ID+, at FinovateFall in 2017. Recognized in March as one of America’s Best Startup Employers by Forbes, and named to Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces 2020 roster in May, Socure was also recently featured as a Gartner Cool Vendor in Artificial Intelligence for Banking and Investment Services.

Headquartered in New York City, Socure has raised nearly $62 million in funding from investors including ff Venture Capital, Scale Venture Partners, Commerce Ventures, and Flint Capital.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Voleo Teams Up with Software Development Firm Convergence Concepts.
  • Finn.AI’s New Integration Makes Chatbots More Personal.
  • Ripple to Offer Blockchain Technology through Finastra.

Around the web

  • Salt Edge reaches milestone of 500+ integrated open banking APIs.
  • Tink makes its platform available in the Netherlands.
  • Stratifyd teams with Anexinet to scale delivery of its AI-powered analytics platform.
  • TASCET releases SYM Certain software suite.
  • Microblink earns a spot in the Deloitte Fast 500.
  • Vymo teams up with ABeam Consulting to expand its business in the Asia-Pacific region.
  • YUKKA Lab joins Plug and Play’s incoming cohort for its Insurtech Europe program.
  • Socure wins 2019 API Award for Best in Data APIs from API World.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Finovate Alumni News

Around the web

  • Ephesoft forges partnership with RPA leader Automation Anywhere.
  • Visa launches its Visa Partner Portal to give fintechs greater access to its payments technologies and solutions.
  • Feedzai announces availability of its AI-powered Case Manager solution.
  • Collaboration between Q2 and Socure brings digital identity verification and fraud protection to Q2 Open’s CorePro cloud-based core processor.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Identity Verification Specialist Socure Raises $30 Million

Identity Verification Specialist Socure Raises $30 Million

Socure is the latest identity verification and fraud prevention innovator to attract the interest of – and big investment from – fintech’s venture capital community. The New York City-based company, which demonstrated its digital-to-physical identity verification platform at FinovateFall 2017, has scored $30 million in new funding in a round led by Scale Venture Partners.

“This funding will enable us to grow our footprint in new strategic U.S. market sectors that are in need of accurate, automated identity verification technology, including healthcare and the public sector,” Socure CEO Tom Thimot said. “We will invest in the talent required to continue innovating and expanding our machine learning-based predictive analytics platform.”

The round also featured participation from Commerce Ventures, Flint Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, Synchrony, and Sorenson Capital. The Series C round takes the company’s total funding to $57.5 million.

Socure’s platform leverages AI and machine learning techniques to analyze trusted on- and offline data from email, phone, IP, physical address, social media and the Internet, and provide real-time authentication. The technology helps drive financial inclusion, boosting acceptance rates for millennials and other thin-file applicants by as much as 40%. Socure’s platform also supports CIP/KYC programs and AML compliance, lowering fraud by up to 80% and cutting manual review costs by up to 90%.

“Companies from banks to insurance carriers to healthcare providers struggle with just how slow, expensive, and inaccurate today’s identity verification services can be,” Scale Venture Partners’ Rory O’Driscoll said. “Socure offers them better accuracy and fraud detection, delivered through an easy-to-implement API connection.”

O’Driscoll, who will join the company’s board of directors as part of the investment, called Socure’s technology “a compelling proposition (that) explains why this company has been so successful so fast.”

Socure finished 2018 with 3x gains in annual revenue and more than 100 deployments with leading banks, lenders, and payment providers. In a statement on the year’s accomplishments, the company highlighted the introduction of its Socure Sigma Fraud Scores risk metrics, the launch of its integrated document verification service, and the release of  version 3.0 of its ID+ platform.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • NDGIT Credits License Revenue, New Bank Clients for Growth.
  • ACI Worldwide Buys Speedway in $750 Million Deal.
  • Identity Verification Specialist Socure Raises $30 Million.
  • Finastra Brings its Total Payments Solution to Silvergate Bank.

Around the web

  • D3 Banking Technology joins Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN).
  • Tradeshift introduces new app integration from Transfermate Global Payments.
  • HackerOne opens official APAC headquarters in Singapore.
  • Healthcare information technology services provider Allscripts partners with ID.me.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.