Founders Fund Values Identity Startup Persona at $1.5 Billion

Katie Roof, Bloomberg News

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(Bloomberg) -- Founders Fund is making a bet that there’s room for more startups in the identity verification space.

The storied venture firm led a $150 million investment in San Francisco-based Persona Identities Inc. Other participants in the round included Meritech Capital Partners, BOND and existing investors Index Ventures and Coatue Management.

Persona works with clients such as Robinhood Markets Inc., DoorDash Inc., Square Inc. and Coursera Inc. to help them to verify the identities of their customers and business partners. It has a range of offerings including biometric selfie scans and the ability to verify the authenticity of government IDs.

There is a fast-growing market opportunity for identity verification, Founders Fund partner Napoleon Ta said in an interview. Persona’s technology is useful for crypto businesses, online brokerages and food delivery, he said.

“When someone signs up for a new brokerage account, they have to verify that their identity is who they say they are,” Ta said. Persona’s offerings are “better, cheaper and faster” than its competition’s, he added.

Identity has always been an important category, said Persona Chief Executive Officer Rick Song. “The need to know who people are has been around since the dawn of the internet,” he said.

Song confirmed the company’s revenue now exceeds $10 million, without providing further details.

Including the new round of financing, Persona has raised $217.5 million since it was founded in 2018.