Socure, a leading machine learning-based digital identity verification and fraud service provider, announced raising a $450 million funding round led by Accel and funds managed by T. Rowe Price, according to a press release sent to FinLedger.
The round included two new investors, Tiger Global Management and Bain Capital Ventures, and brings Socure to $647 million in total funding and a $4.5 billion valuation. Existing lead investors Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners and Sorenson Ventures also participated in the round.
Socure says it will use the investment to “substantially accelerate” its product innovation investments, penetrate new markets including the public sector and scale its ID+ platform. The company also says it plans to scale its product, data science and engineering teams, with a goal to grow its team from about 150 to almost 500.
“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,” Socure founder and CEO Johnny Ayers stated in the release.
“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,” he said.
Accel previously led the company’s $100 million Series D in March. Since then, Socure has hit some incredible growth numbers, with 221% year-over-year (YoY) customer growth, 500% YoY bookings increase and five consecutive quarters of record YoY revenue growth.
The company has the highest adoption rate in the KYC/AML market across all industries and managed to reach an industry-high 179% net retention rate in the third quarter.
These numbers aren’t surprising when you look at their clientele: Chime, SoFi, Varo, Citi Ventures, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, Capital One Ventures, Public, and DraftKings to name a few. Their huge revenue growth isn’t too surprising either, when you consider that identity fraud losses reached $56 billion and $400 billion in the private and public sectors, respectively.
Socure’s ID+ platform utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to build a comprehensive identity graph for businesses looking to process Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) capabilities.
The service is used by enterprises of all sizes, including four of the five largest banks, seven of the 10 largest credit card issuers, top BNPL providers and leading investment management, crypto exchanges and fintechs, according to the release.
Socure’s number one goal is verifying 100% good identities and eliminating identity fraud; this goal is well on its way, according to Ayers.
“We will be the first to verify 100% of good identities and completely eliminate identity fraud. That is what we are heads down doing, we will be the first to solve that,” he said. “And that is an internet-wide, societal problem that exists for every enterprise across the web.”
Aside from that, the company plans to use the large amount of data and experience it has built in the financial sector to expand its solutions into a number of new markets.
“We always viewed financial services as being the bedrock, the foundation that we would initially build our business off. It’s the most highly regulated, the most secure,” Ayers said.
“If we could establish trust with 12 of the top 15 banks, and soon I’m sure we’ll have 15 of the top 15. If we can establish trust there, right, you can move into these all these other verticals.”
In other recent fintech news, US Bank added payment requests to eBill service products, allowing billers to provide better experience for its customers. Ocrolus and Blend also partnered, embedding Human-in-the-Loop automated document analysis into mortgage applications.