Start-up Persona raises US$17.5 million to expand alternative authentication platform
Authentication start-up Persona has raised US$17.5 million from Coatue, First Round Capital and other investors, according to a report by Techcrunch. The article said the San Francisco-based company plans to use the funds to further develop its API-based platform, which enables businesses and organisations to use a growing variety of documents and mechanisms to verify that customers are who they say they are.
Persona gives its customers, which include Rippling, Petal, UrbanSitter, Branch, Brex, Postmates, Outdoorsy, Rently, SimpleHealth and Hipcamp, the option to ask for social security numbers, biometric verification, such as fingerprints or pictures, or government ID uploads and phone lookups, some of which are built by Persona itself and some of which are accessed via third-party partnerships, according to Techcrunch. “Digital identity is one of the most important things to get right, but there is no silver bullet,” Persona CEO Rick Song told the publication. “I believe longer term we’ll see that it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.” Song said Persona is expanding its authentication options to include quizzes and video-based interactions, while looking at ways to use artificial intelligence to suggest the best tools for each interaction.