With celebrity investors & mortgage lender backing, Verifast wants to improve verification
Summary
One of those investors was Scott McGillivray, who invested in Verifast through his real estate education company Keyspire, which he created alongside Michael Sarracini. Verifasts total funding to date amounts to $3.75 million.Verifast co-founder and CEO Tim Ray described the startup as a way for businesses and consumers to disclose, verify, and analyze identity and financial information really quickly.The Toronto-based company was founded in 2019 by Craig Schoen and Chad Guziewicz, who currently serve as CTO and COO, respectively. With personal experience being a very unsuccessful landlord, as he put it, Ray saw potential in Verifast and ended up joining as a co-founder.It was just like a eureka moment, he told BetaKit. I think this is huge, theres a lot of juice here, and I had to be part of it.Rays previous ventures include airline booking startup CHIRP, and other food industry startups that were acquired, including Carnivore Club, which was bought by BattlBox and later Emerge Commerce.When it comes to Verifast, Ray sees potential beyond tenant screening and mortgage underwriting.The big vision is basically becoming a default platform for instant disclosure and adjudication of risk and or select financial details between two parties across many different verticals, and across both Fiat and [the] digital or crypto world, Ray stated. The startup is exploring customer opportunities in both Canada and the United States.Ray stated that Verifasts ultimate goal is to make applications for things like mortgages and rentals more equitable.Theres a lot written about credit checks and how there [are] sometimes inherent biases, he said.