guaranteeIs a Seattle startup that helps companies verify their identities. It has received $4.5 million in investment from investors, including Darrell Cavins with Mark Watton, The co-founder of e-commerce giant Zulily.
This is a vote of confidence cast for the three-year-old company that was spun off from the accelerator Madrona Venture Labs of the Madrona Venture Group in Seattle.
Cavens is the CEO of Zulily, which was sold to QVC parent company Liberty Interactive in 2015 for $2.4 billion. He previously invested in Vouched and led the most recent round of financing.
“The world is becoming more and more digital every day, and security is a topic of concern to every business and consumer,” Cavins told GeekWire. “Solutions that go beyond simple authentication and passwords are the future-and Vouched can play a key role in it.”
Vouched uses artificial intelligence to help more than 150 companies in various industries verify the identities of their customers, clients, and contractors. Its software analyzes the images of photo IDs, including passports and driving licenses. This technology compares user’s selfies to confirm identity. It also checks text such as addresses.
The idea is to provide a person’s fraud detection in real time. Use cases include KYC (Know Your Customers) in banking; job screening; gig economy recruitment; non-contact hotel stays; and more. Vouched aims to do something for identity verification, just like Stripe does for online payment.
A large number of competitors are also developing related authentication technologies, including Vancouver-based Trulioo, which raised US$394 million in June, Seattle-based AuthenticID, which raised US$100 million last month, and OCR Labs, which just improve 15 million U.S. dollars. As companies move processes online, the demand from these companies has increased during the pandemic.
What makes Vouched unique is that its patent-pending computer vision software can check various risk factors. “Vouched is fully self-service and developer first,” the CEO added John Baird, Former executive officer of Blue Nile and WE Communications.He founded this company John Cao, Who is the chief technology officer, but Announce He left earlier this month.
Other supporters include angel investors such as Bankers Healthcare Group, Professional Bank, Flying Fish Partners, Ascend.vc and Jove CEO Dave Atchison, Mike Porter, Callisto Vice President of Media Brian Watkins, Rotating CFO Jesse Timmermans, with Vijay Tawar, Chief Executive Officer of Foot Locker Europe, Middle East and Africa. The total capital of the 20-person company is US$12 million.
“Darrell and Mark are legendary industry disruptors and builders,” Baird said in a press release. “Our strategic partners in banking and law will also become important partners in our efforts to accelerate Vouched’s global identity platform: banks, because it powers all economic activities, and every transaction depends on identity, and it’s legal because of it. Defines the identity.”
Vadon was previously the chairman of Zulily and online pet retailer Chewy. He founded Blue Nile, an online jewelry company, in 1999; Cavins joined shortly thereafter as chief technology officer.
Both Cavens and Vadon recently invested in another Seattle startup, Rad Power Bikes, in March.