Socure raises $30 million to combat identity fraud with machine learning
Identity fraud: It’s more common than you think. In 2017, 6.64 percent of consumers — or about 16.7 million people — fell victim to it, according to a report by research firm Javelin Strategy. (That’s up 1 million from 2016.) And in 2018 alone, over 2.6 billion records were stolen or exposed in more than 1,100 data breaches around the world.
That’s enough to give anyone the willies, but New York-based Socure hopes to put minds at ease with its cloud-based identity verification and fraud prevention solution. To accelerate its market expansion and grow its sales, marketing, research, and customer support teams, the startup has completed a $30 million series C funding round led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from contributors Commerce Ventures, Flint Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, Synchrony, and Santander InnoVentures, along with new investor Sorenson Capital.
It brings Socure’s total venture capital raised to $57.5 million, and comes after a year in which revenue grew more than 300 percent year-over-year. CEO Tom Thimot says that Socure’s clients include six of the top 10 U.S. card issuers and a top five online retailer, among over 100 other brokers, payment providers, and other companies.
“This funding will enable us to grow our footprint in strategic new U.S. market sectors that are in need of accurate, automated identity verification technology, including health care and the public sector,” Thimot said, adding that Socure’s workforce more than doubled this year and moved into a larger office near New York City’s Penn Station. “We will also invest in bringing on the talent required to continue innovating and expanding our machine learning-based predictive analytics platform.”