Announcing CertifID's $12.5M Series A Funding

We started CertifID in 2017 in response to a very personal experience for my co-founders, Tom and Lawrence. As the owners of Sun Title, a prominent title agent based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, they were one of the early victims of wire fraud. After losing nearly $200k, they spent months on recovery efforts to get back a trivial portion of the funds. The experience ultimately culminated in testimony in front of the Department of Justice. 

What started as a gut-wrenching loss turned into a triumphant story of resilience as CertifID was born. I'll never forget the call from Tom when he told me what they were building and asked me to join. At the time, I was the Lead Product Manager at Endpoint following 18 months of title industry research as part of BCG Digital Ventures. Since then, what has followed has been an epic journey with many highlights and challenges that I could never have predicted. And that's precisely why I'm so proud of how far we have come and bullish on our trajectory forward.

Given the current state of the industry with rising interest rates and broader investment markets shaken, we feel incredibly privileged to receive growth capital at this time. It's a true testament to CertifID's impressive growth, solid business fundamentals, and an industry-leading product that prevents wire fraud at scale, the most pervasive threat facing title agents today that continues to grow at an alarming rate.

So why raise capital now, and what does this mean for CertifID?

Product innovation‍

The threat of wire fraud continues to develop as cyber criminals adapt their strategies and tactics, and we believe the effective use of technology can mitigate it. We plan to continue investing in product innovation that helps title companies and law firms level up their operations on all types of transactions and transfers of funds:

• Protection for mortgage payoffs that eliminates the cumbersome process of calling lenders to verify wiring instructions
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• Greater support for commercial real estate transactions
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• Enabling the transfer of funds between validated parties
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• Scaling our Fraud Recovery Services offering to assist an even more significant number of victims in their time of need

Growing thought leadership and category education‍

While the technology component of CertifID is a critical pillar in preventing wire fraud,  education is equally as important. Through exclusive partnerships with the United States Secret Service and the cyber insurance markets via Lloyd's of London, we see the problem through a unique lens and feel a true sense of obligation to share that perspective in the ongoing effort to raise awareness.

Since day 1 of CertifID, education has always been our hallmark. We believe that the more we can educate the industry and everyone who participates in a Real Estate transaction, the better our chances are of slowing down the impact of fraud. We are going to double down our education efforts in a big way. 

‍Building a world-class team‍

None of CertifID's success would have been possible without the exceptionally talented team of mission-driven individuals who make up the Certi-fam. As a co-founder, it's incredibly gratifying to witness this team's passion and purpose every day. We're excited to aggressively pursue our mission to protect life's most valuable transactions by hiring top talent across all departments. If you think you'd be a great fit, shoot me an email or reach out via our careers page.

‍Who's backing us?‍

The round was led by Arthur Ventures, a Minneapolis-based growth equity firm that leads B2B software investments in high-growth, capital-efficient businesses. Joining our board will be their General Partner, Patrick Meenan. We were fortunate to receive numerous term sheets from venture capital and growth equity firms across the country. Still, we ultimately felt that Patrick and the Arthur Ventures team were closest aligned to our vision and truly embodied many of the core values that our team lives by. 

‍A round of thank you's

We're grateful for the support of all who have joined us on this journey so far; we could have never made it this far without you. That includes employees who have entrusted us with their career development, customers who believe in what we are doing and trust us with their client experience, partners that had the conviction to seek out a best-in-class solution to offer their agents as a value-add, investors who believed in us from the beginning, and Arthur Ventures for fueling us through this next phase of growth. 

We don't take this opportunity lightly; it gives us more determination and motivation than ever. The best is yet to come from CertifID!

Interested in learning more about how CertifID can help prevent wire fraud for you or your business? Request a demo.