Launches with Quona-Led $12M Series A Funding, Major Fintech and Merchant Customers, and 12 Million Verified Identities
Bureau announced it has raised US $12 million in Series A funding to usher in a new era of frictionless transactions via its identity and fraud detection technology, which delivers unprecedented trust and security to businesses and consumers alike. To date, Bureau has raised $16M combined in Seed and Series A funding. The round was led by Quona, with participation from Commerce Ventures and Okta Identity and returning investments from Sweat Equity Ventures, XYZ, Blume Ventures, EMVC, and Village Global. Other participants include strategic angels Mark Britto, EVP Chief Product Officer at Paypal, and Bobby Mehta, Retd President and CEO of Transunion. The funding will be used to expand the Bureau team and further build the risk infrastructure it needs to support the global growth of fintech and ecommerce transactions. Bureau’s current partners and customers are in India and South East Asia.
Serial cybersecurity leader Ranjan Reddy, who sold his last startup Qubecell to Boku, founded Bureau in 2020, just as the COVID pandemic was dramatically increasing global reliance on mobile transactions. Reddy and his team of passionate leaders from GSMA, Intuit, Jio, Razorpay, Samsung and more wanted to find a way to bring more businesses and consumers around the globe together to safely transact, effectively building the risk infrastructure for the next generation of transactions.
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Since COVID first appeared, over two billion people purchased goods or services online, with online retail surpassing $4.2 trillion. Launched to allow fintechs, retailers and shoppers to benefit from this new economy without fear, Bureau verifies individual identity, fights fraud, and flushes friction to build trust —all with underwriting that creates a Bureau Guarantee of purchase.
“It’s a jungle out there—literally. When businesses attempt to verify identities to avoid fraud, interactions become clunky and unfriendly for consumers. Bureau’s solution is the way forward, allowing fast and easy transactions that eliminate risk for businesses and friction for consumers,” said Ranjan Reddy, founder and CEO of Bureau. “We’re well on our way to a world where a Bureau Guarantee tells billions of people and thousands of companies who to trust, unblocking the frictions in an enormous global market. We’re so certain in our convictions, we underwrite the process ourselves, with a performance guarantee.”
“COVID has created a transformative opportunity to remove inefficiencies across the digital ecosystem. Solving friction around transactions and trust for businesses and consumers is absolutely critical for hypergrowth in global emerging markets and Asia, and we think Bureau’s full stack solution has tremendous potential,” said Ganesh Rengaswamy, co-founder and managing partner at Quona. “We are excited to see Bureau’s growth and ambition to become the gold standard to ensure that people and businesses can truly trust one another enough to transact safely, and deliver digital and financial inclusion.”
How Bureau Works
Bureau’s platform guarantees in-real time that a customer or shopper is legitimate by verifying their phone number against third-party intelligence, behavioral biometrics, and across a growing network of merchants to create a multifaceted risk profile and network that gets stronger with each activity.
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The company’s proprietary technology takes the burden of verification off of the consumer—who otherwise might need to answer onerous questions, choose stoplights photos from a grid of photos, take a selfie or offer other additional factors of authentication—while also ensuring a verified identity to the merchant. It does all of this without adding friction or wait time that too often results in an abandoned cart or lost sale. Other key differentiators include:
- – Seamless mobile authentication: Once Bureau verifies a user’s identity, they are granted seamless login—removing the need for future two-factor authentication
- – Fraud risks guarantee: Bureau fully underwrites merchants’ fraud risks so businesses can transact with trust, scale their business, and accelerate the digital economy in markets where lack of trust has limited opportunity
- – Trusted network: Each validated customer—and there are already more than 10 million—is added to a growing consortium of merchants’ data that further strengthens the Bureau database
“Bureau’s existing customer base, and traction like they’ve gained among consumers, speaks to the tremendous market opportunity ahead,” said Austin Arensberg, Senior Director at Okta Ventures. “Bureau is the first company we’ve backed that’s explicitly tackling the emerging Asian markets, and we are excited to support the company and team on their journey.”
Tokenized Identity = Bureau’s Trust Badge
Once an identity is verified on the platform with a positive risk score, users are awarded a trust badge that guarantees future friction-free online experiences, including OneTapLogin and instant checkout.
“Ranjan and team have the regional knowledge, the deep security expertise, and the network to build an infrastructure that significantly derisks entry into emerging markets,” said Dan Portillo, founder and CEO of Sweat Equity Ventures. “What an incredible opportunity for anyone looking to change how global business is done.”
The company is already working with 20 of the fastest-growing fintechs and retail companies in the regions where it operates, including ICICI Prudential, Jupiter Money and Aditya Birla Capital.
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