Prove Identity builds mobile-first identity verification technology that links a phone’s SIM data with handset functionality (for example, facial recognition) to authenticate users and trigger actions like pre-filled forms, verification flows and password-free authentication. The company says the mobile handset remains central to its proposition and markets its tools as delivering faster onboarding, lower abandonment and reduced fraud (it cites 79% faster onboarding, 35% reduction in abandonment and a 75% reduction in fraud). Prove serves roughly 1,000 business customers, including major banks, retailers, insurers and firms such as FanDuel, Experian, Visa, Starbucks, BlueCross BlueShield and DocuSign. It reported 40% international growth in the last year and says it is cash-flow positive. Historically, the company (originally Payfone) reported processing 20 billion authentications in 2019 and was founded around 2008. Prove plans to use the new funding to build out more tools for digital payments and commerce and to expand its fraud-detection capabilities. Payfone provides a B2B2C platform that creates trust scores and tokens from telecoms and mobile-phone signals to identify and verify users without storing personal data. Its technology is used by carriers, banks, healthcare and insurance companies to authenticate transactions and logins, operating invisibly as a complement or alternative to other authentication methods. The company plans to build more machine learning into its algorithms, expand into 35 additional geographies, and pursue strategic acquisitions to broaden its technology stack. Payfone has discussed forming a consortium or clearing-house approach to share identity signals securely. It processed 20 billion authentications in 2019 and reported roughly 70% year-over-year growth, with a stated aim to reach 100 billion authentications in coming years. Payfone says it is already profitable and has raised $175 million to date. Payfone provides Trust Platform™ and Trust Score™ to enable businesses to instantly verify customers and thwart fraud and cyberattacks in real time. The company operates within a privacy-first, zero-knowledge framework that prevents consumer information from being passed, stored, or aggregated. In March it announced the next phase of its Zero-Knowledge architecture to enable identity verification partners, such as mobile network operators, to verify identities without sharing consumer information. Payfone serves six of the top ten US financial institutions and customers in healthcare, insurance, technology and retail. In 2018 the company authenticated 20 billion transactions for Fortune 500 companies and said it expected to double that number in 2019. The company is led by CEO Rodger Desai. Payfone operates a patented digital identity authentication platform that dynamically analyzes millions of signals to generate a proprietary Trust Score for each digital identity. Its product suite includes Fonebook, Instant Authentication for Mobile, Instant Authentication for Voice, Trust Score, and Identity Pre-Fill, all intended to accelerate revenue, improve conversions, and reduce fraud and operating expense. Payfone positions its technology to replace one-time SMS passcodes and knowledge-based authentication, thwart SIM-swap and porting fraud, and improve call-center authentication. The company says it is trusted by the world’s largest banks, insurers, brokerages and technology companies and targets sectors including retail, financial services, insurance, healthcare and technology. Payfone emphasizes delivering strong cybersecurity without sacrificing customer experience and aims to expand these benefits to more companies and customers. The company’s latest funding round totals $23 million; terms of the round were not disclosed. Payfone is a New York–based provider of mobile identity authentication for digital channels. It develops a patented mobile authentication technology that businesses use to protect customers from identity theft and social engineering attacks. The company's solution is positioned to limit fraud losses and reduce authentication-related expenses while driving customer engagement. Payfone is led by CEO Rodger Desai. In May 2017 the company raised $23.5m in a Series E financing. The round also included board additions tied to the financing.

Total raised

$251M

Funding rounds

9

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Oct 2023