As organizations look for safe and efficient ways of running their services in the new global paradigm of increased social distancing, a startup that has built a platform to help people verify their work details in a secure way is announcing a round of growth funding.<\/p>\n
Truework<\/a>, which provides a way for banks, apartment-rental agencies, and others to check the employment details of an applicant in a quick and secure manner online, has raised $30 million, money that CEO and co-founder Ryan Sandler said in an interview that it would use both grow its existing business, as well to explore adding more details \u2014 both via its own service and via third-party partnerships \u2014 to the identity information that it shares.<\/p>\n The Series B is being led by Activant Capital <\/a> \u2014 a VC that focuses on B2B2C startups \u2014 with participation also from Sequoia Capital <\/a> and Khosla Ventures, as well as a number of high profile execs and entrepreneurs \u2014\u00a0Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn); Tom Gonser\u00a0(Docusign); William Hockey (Plaid); and Daniel Yanisse (Checkr) among them.<\/p>\n The LinkedIn <\/a> connection is an interesting one. Both Sandler and co-founder Victor Kabdebon were engineers at LinkedIn working on profile and improving the kind of data that LinkedIn sources on its users (the third co-founder, Ethan Winchell, previously worked elsewhere), and while Sandler tells me that the idea for Truework came to them after both left the company, he sees LinkedIn \u201cas a potential partner here,\u201d so watch this space.<\/p>\n The problem that Truework <\/a> is aiming to solve is the very clunky, and often insecure, nature of how organizations typically verify an individual\u2019s employment information. Details about salary and where you work, and the job you do, are typically essential for larger financial transactions, whether it\u2019s securing a mortgage or another financing loan, or renting an apartment, or for others who might need to verify that information for other purposes, such as staffing agencies.<\/p>\n Typically that kind of information gathering is time-consuming both to reach out to get and to confirm (Sandler cites statistics that say on average an\u00a0HR person spends over 1,000 hours annually answering questions like these). And some of the systems that have been put in place to do that work \u2014 specifically consumer reporting agencies \u2014 have been proven not be as watertight in their security as you would hope.<\/p>\n \u201cYour data is flowing around lots of third party platforms,\u201d Sandler said. \u201cYou\u2019re releasing a lot of information about yourself and you don\u2019t know where the data is going and if it\u2019s even accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n Truework\u2019s solution is based around a platform, and now an API, that a company buys into. In turn, it gives its employees the ability to consent to using it. If the employee agrees, Truework sources a worker\u2019s place of employment and salary details. Then when a third party wants to verify that information for the person in question, it uses Truework to do so, rather than contacting the company directly.<\/p>\n Then, when those queries come in, Truework contacts the individual with an email or text about the inquiry, so that he\/she can okay (or reject) the request. Truework\u2019s Sandler said that it uses\u00a0ISO27001, SOC2 Type 1 2 protections, but he also confirmed that it does store your data.<\/p>\n Currently the idea is that if you leave your job, your next employer would need to also be a Truework customer in order to update the information it has on you: the startup makes money by charging both larger enterprises to make the platform accessible to employees as well as those organizations that are querying for the information\/verifications (small business employers using the platform can use it for free).<\/p>\n Over time, the plan will be to configure a way to update your profiles regardless of where you work.<\/p>\n So far, the concept has seen a lot of traction: there are 20,000 small businesses using the platform, as well as 100 enterprises, with the number of verifiers (its term for those requesting information) now at 40,000. Customers include The College Board, The Real Real, Oscar Health, <\/a> The Motley Fool, and Tuft\u00a0 Needle.<\/p>\n While all of this was built at a time before COVID-19, the global health pandemic has highlighted the importance of having more efficient and secure systems for doing work, especially at a time when many people are not in the office.<\/p>\n \u201cOur biggest competitor is the fax machine and the phone call,\u201d Sandler said, \u201cbut as companies move to more remote working, no one is manning the phones or fax machines. But these operations still need to happen.\u201d Indeed, he points out that at the end of 2019, Truework had 25,000 verifiers. Nearly doubling its end-user customers speaks to the huge boost in business it has seen in the last five months.<\/p>\n That is part of the reason the company has attracted the investment it has.<\/p>\n \u201cTruework\u2019s platform sits at the center of consumers\u2019 most important transactions\u00a0and life events \u2013 from purchasing a home, to securing a new job,\u201d said Steve\u00a0Sarracino, founder and partner at Activant Capital, in a statement. \u201cUp until now, the identity\u00a0verification process has been painful, expensive, and opaque for all parties\u00a0involved, something we\u2019ve seen first-hand in the mortgage space. Starting with\u00a0income and employment, Truework is setting the standard for consent-based\u00a0verifications and unlocking the next wave of the digital economy. We\u2019re thrilled to\u00a0be partnering with this exceptional team as they continue to scale the platform.\u201d Sarracino is joining the board with this round.<\/p>\n While a big focus in the world of tech right now may be on building more and better ways of connecting goods and services to people in as contact-free a way as possible, the bigger play around identity management has been around for years, and will continue to be a huge part of how the internet develops in the future.<\/p>\n The fax and phone may be the primary tools these days for verifying employment information, but on a more general level, there are companies like Facebook, <\/a> Google and Apple already playing a big role in how we \u201clog in\u201d and use all kinds of services online. They, along with others focused squarely on the identity and verification space (and Truework works with some of them), and using a myriad of approaches that include biometrics, \u2018wallet\u2019-style passports that link to information elsewhere, and more, will all continue to try to make the case for why they might be the most trusted provider of that layer of information, at a time when we may want to share less and especially share less with multiple parties.<\/p>\n That is the bigger opportunity that investors are betting on here.<\/p>\n