Socure

Overview

Socure is an identity-verification and fraud-prevention company based in Incline Village, Nevada, whose platform uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help banks, fintechs and government agencies verify identities in real time so they can approve genuine customers while stopping fraud (Crunchbase News). Founded in 2012 by Johnny Ayers and Sunil Madhu, it grew from a New York startup into a $5.2 billion company serving more than 3,000 enterprise customers, including 19 of the 20 largest banks in the United States (Finovate; Crunchbase News).

This profile covers the identity-verification company Socure — not a similarly named business — and follows it from its founding through its unicorn rounds, its acquisition-built RiskOS platform, and its move into government identity work.

From a New York startup to the identity layer

Ayers co-founded Socure with Madhu in 2012, and the company’s early product was a predictive-analytics platform that applied AI and machine learning to trusted online and offline data — email, phone, address, device and internet signals — to verify identities in real time (Finovate). Under Tom Thimot, who joined as CEO in the spring of 2018, Socure gained ISO certification for its privacy and security controls and launched Aida, a bot for real-time validation and authentication of digital identities (Finovate). In that era Socure also forged a partnership with workflow specialist Alloy (Finovate).

Ayers, who had served as director of business development and chief product officer, succeeded Thimot as CEO in late 2020, having led the ID+ platform’s expansion into Intelligent KYC, document verification (DocV) and Sigma Synthetic Fraud (Finovate). The pandemic-era shift to online transactions then supercharged the business: after a $100 million Series D, Socure closed a $450 million Series E in November 2021 led by Accel and T. Rowe Price at a $4.5 billion valuation — about triple its value seven months earlier — with bookings up 500% and its customer base up more than 220% over the prior year (Built In). At that point it counted more than 750 customers among top banks, card issuers and payroll providers (Built In).

The RiskOS acquisition chain and the government business

Rather than staying a point-solution verification vendor, Socure bought its way into a broader risk platform. It acquired document-verification startup Berbix in 2023 and real-time risk-decisioning company Effectiv in 2024, then launched RiskOS, its risk decisioning platform, in February 2025 (SiliconANGLE). The August 2026 round extended that strategy: a $156 million strategic growth investment led by Summit Partners, with Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Wells Fargo and Docusign participating, valued Socure at $5.2 billion and mixed new primary capital with a secondary tender offer letting employees sell shares (Crunchbase News). Announced the same day, the acquisition of Austin-based agentic-AI startup Fravity added AI agents that automate fraud, risk and compliance investigations, folded into RiskOS as RiskOS_Agents for watchlist screening, ongoing monitoring and know-your-business checks (SiliconANGLE).

The investment case Socure presented was AI-driven fraud itself: the company reported an 8,000% increase in AI-driven fraud across its network over the prior year, as generative AI made convincing fake identities easier to create and attacks easier to automate (Crunchbase News). By the second quarter of 2026 it reported $364 million in annual recurring revenue, up 63% year over year, more than 3,000 enterprise customers spanning 600-plus fintechs, major sportsbook and prediction-market operators and 160 public-sector organizations, and more than 550 employees (Crunchbase News). Its government business became concrete in May 2026, when it won a five-year, $163 million federal contract to provide identity-proofing technology for Login.gov (Crunchbase News). With the latest round, total disclosed funding passed $742 million since its 2012 founding (Crunchbase News).

What this profile does not claim

• Socure’s headquarters history is stated with a caveat: 2020 coverage describes the firm as based in New York City, while 2026 coverage calls it Incline Village, Nevada-based. No source read states when or why the base moved, so no move date is claimed.
• The split of the August 2026 $156 million between primary capital and the employee secondary tender was not disclosed, and neither were the prices paid for Berbix, Effectiv or Fravity.
• Aggregator estimates of Socure’s revenue and total funding were not used: they disagree with each other and with editorial reporting, and are estimates rather than verified figures.
• Growth figures such as the $364 million ARR and the 8,000% fraud increase are company-reported numbers carried by independent outlets, not independently audited results.