Back to Blog

Today marks a tremendous milestone for our team and partners: Socure has officially become a “unicorn!” I am ecstatic to announce Socure’s $100 million Series D funding round, led by Accel with participation from our existing investors, with a mission to eliminate ID fraud and ensure 100% trust on the internet. This round underscores our position as the emerging market leader in digital identity as demand surges for our solutions across all verticals.

The latest raise brings Socure’s total funding to $196 million and our valuation to over $1 billion. Socure’s successes and our new status as a unicorn would not have been possible without the unrelenting support of Socure’s “village,” which includes our employees, customers, investors, and their families. I am extremely grateful for this incredible and elite team of Socureans who are helping to make Socure’s ambitious goals a reality.

We are also honored to be working with Accel, one of the most distinguished investment firms in the world, and thrilled to welcome Accel’s Venture Partner Amit Jhawar to Socure’s board of directors. Amit’s fintech experience, especially as the former CFO/COO of Braintree and GM/CEO of Venmo, will bring us invaluable industry insight and expertise. We are fortunate to have Amit as part of our team and are looking forward to his contributions and partnership.

Testament to the Socure Team

Reaching this milestone is a testament to our dedicated and remarkably talented team — we could not have done this without each and every one of you. I have no doubt we reached this pivotal point because of the teamwork, relentless drive to win, and intellectual horsepower that each Socurean brings to the company and our customers every day.

As we chart our next phase of growth, our top priority will be to maintain continued focus on building a customer-obsessed, highly analytical, results-focused company culture while offering best-in-class digital identity solutions and fraud solutions into the market.

Mission Critical

Since inception, we have been laser-focused on developing the future of identity verification with the ability to identify 100% of good IDs while completely eliminating fraud in digital commerce. This latest funding round will allow Socure to be the first in the industry to achieve this mission. While achieving this mission, we will also continue to rapidly grow our customer base which will further boost the magnitude of our identity graph and the development of Socure’s persistent identity network, permitting us to solve for an even wider set of identity and fraud problems beyond just Day Zero.

Moving forward, we will lead the industry to a more tightly integrated end-to-end identity solution to eliminate the operational gaps between KYC, fraud, AML and document verification over the entire lifecycle of a customer.

There is tremendous growth potential in the digital identity market as businesses continue to migrate towards online services, commerce, and transactions. In many markets, a single good consumer who abandons an application or transaction due to the inability to verify their identity can cost businesses between $100 and $1000 each or even worse, leave an underserved or underrepresented thin-file consumer still seeking much needed services online. On the flip side, synthetic ID fraud losses on average can top $15,000 per event and for a long period of time can be substantially damaging to a consumer who has had their identity stolen or abused. With new verticals continuing to come online that were once defined exclusively by physical interactions and exchanges, the need for a solution in this market has never been more acute.

We are confident that we will be the first company to eliminate identity fraud while unlocking fully automated coverage of every good ID on the internet. Personally, I cannot think of a more exciting problem to be working to solve.

Impact for Customers

I am incredibly lucky for the chance to innovate and partner to solve problems with some of the greatest companies in the world. Our customers are the driving-force behind Socure and keep me jumping out of bed every morning. They continue to challenge us, push us, and encourage us to make industry-first breakthroughs.

I look forward to growing with our 1,800+ customers which now includes three of the top five banks, six of the top 10 card issuers, three of the top MSBs, the largest payroll service, the second-largest retailer in the world, the largest online gaming operator and over 100 of the largest and most successful fintechs such as Public, Varo Money, Chime, and Stash. I also look forward to the opportunity to continue to co-innovate with many of our strategic investors which include Citi, Wells Fargo, Synchrony, Santander and MVB Bank.

Hiring Top Talent, Investing in Product Innovation, and Entry into New Verticals

This new round of funding will help us execute on our mission by investing heavily into our team and attracting the industry’s best and brightest. Further, we will use the financing to support the rapid expansion of our industry-leading ID & fraud solutions into new verticals beyond financial services such as online gaming, healthcare, telco, ecommerce, on-demand services, government and more.

While we are still in the early stages of this market, Socure’s future outlook is incredibly compelling as we continue to distinguish ourselves as the brand synonymous with eliminating identity fraud and verifying 100% of known good IDs.

Building a Long-standing Company

Our new unicorn status cements the role we will play in eliminating identity fraud and fulfilling our mission to create 100% trust in identity on the internet. We are excited about the opportunities ahead, as I believe we are just at the beginning of an exciting, and rewarding path, especially as we march toward a potential IPO.

To our employees, customers, investors and families: thank you for the important role each of you has played in helping us reach this momentous occasion, and we greatly appreciate your continued support to help us reach our next ambitious milestone. I am both humbled and honored to lead the company into this next phase of hyper-growth and am grateful to you all for joining me as we create the Socure story together.

Johnny Ayers
Posted by

Johnny Ayers

Topics:
Johnny Ayers

Johnny Ayers is founder and CEO of Socure. Since founding the company in 2012, he has had a number of roles, including managing and leading strategy for the Direct Sales, Channel, Product, and Growth organizations. Johnny has been instrumental in building the company's tremendous customer base and suite of industry-leading digital identity verification and fraud prevention solutions. He is also a frequent expert speaker on fraud, authentication, and KYC/AML, and has been quoted in publications such as the WSJ, Forbes, Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, Cheddar, PYMNTS.com, and more. In 2022 he was awarded Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Finovate Executive of the Year, and has been named by Goldman Sachs as one of the top 100 Entrepreneurs of 2021 and 2022. Outside of Socure, Johnny is an investor in and an advisor to companies including; Acorns, Alloy, Astra, Bask, BillGo, Chipper Cash, Commerce Ventures, Curve, MoCaFi, and more.