Payfone, which provides identity authentication for digital channels, has secured $100m investment led by funds advised by Apax Digital.
With the fresh funds, Payfone intends to form a cross-industry consortium to secure digital transactions.
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It also intends to use the funds for enhancing its machine learning capabilities and purchasing strategic assets.
As part of the deal, Apax Digital managing partner Daniel O’Keefe and principal Zach Fuchs gained seats on the Payfone board.
“Payfone’s Trust Score is core to the real-time decisioning that enterprises need in order to drive revenue while thwarting fraud and protecting privacy,” O’Keefe noted.
Apax Digital, the growth equity team of Apax Partners, was joined by new investors Sandbox Insurtech Ventures and ex-AT&T vice chairman Ralph de la Vega.
Current backers MassMutual Ventures, Synchrony, Blue Venture Fund, Wellington Management, and former LexisNexis CEO Andrew Prozes also joined.
Payfone CEO Rodger Desai said: “With one in three US consumers already authenticated by Payfone, this investment accelerates our ability to set the standard for the authentication process.
“As we build out a cross-industry consortium, more enterprises will be able to access Payfone’s real-time fraud and risk signals to prevent account takeovers while passing more transactions.”
Payfone’s authentication solutions, including Trust Score, have the ability to anonymously measure a phone number’s reputation and risk with real-time processing of behavioural signals.
The firm’s technology detects spoofed calls, synthetic identities as well as real-time SIM swap fraud. It also eliminates friction from legitimate transactions.
In 2018, Synchrony Financial made a strategic investment in Payfone.
