Please welcome Footprint, the last identity form you’ll ever fill out
Meet Footprint, the latest addition to Lerer Hippeau’s portfolio.
HQ: New York, NY
Founders: Eli Wachs and Alex Grinman
The problem: Being a digital citizen requires using identity credentials, including SSN, DL, DOB, education and employment history, income, and more, online. Current verification processes are broken, though. They add huge friction to everyday life, costing companies and individuals time and money (an estimated $56B is lost to identity fraud each year). Every time someone signs up for a website, opens a bank account, checks out on a shopping cart, or applies for a job, the process is revealed as terrible and not secure for all involved. Plus, data breaches and fraud threaten businesses and individuals. Enterprises and consumers alike need a better way to secure digital identities.
Footprint’s solution: Footprint’s frictionless identity verification platform redefines digital identity and data management by putting people in charge of their identity while solving KYC, IDV, and PII storage issues for enterprises. The platform gives enterprises and their employees the tools to verify, authenticate, authorize, and secure identity with no friction, low cost, and unparalleled accuracy. For the first time, consumers are able to live in a secure world that trusts and rewards them for being digital citizens. Footprint’s tech preserves privacy to satisfy KYC without needing to touch PII. A secure vault protects PII and limits data exposure while minimizing cost (up to 2x cheaper than traditional methods to verify and store PII). Footprint’s cutting-edge biometric scans and peer-to-peer verification help to validate real people in real time, keeping bad actors out and creating a seamless experience for real users. Initially, Footprint will target fintech companies and will expand from there.
Origin story: When we met Eli, we knew we had to work with him. He routinely wows us with his thoughtful approach to data privacy and its real-world applications, and has spent many years steeped in the data privacy landscape at startups and as an investor at General Atlantic. Eli’s co-founder, Alex, previously built Krypt.co, a zero-trust authenticator for developers and consumers. The pair’s deep roots in the identity and data security space make them the right founders to build in this space. We’re also supportive of a side project that Eli founded: Tech Fights Dobbs, a group of privacy and healthcare companies using technology to protect personal information in a post-Roe world.
Why we’re betting on it: To date, enterprises have required separate tools for KYC and tokenization. Footprint does both in one, and passes along savings to customers. Plus, Footprint’s one-click flow increases conversion by reducing account creation time (up to 12x quicker than the alternatives). And finally, the dev experience is sped up by about 10x — just a few lines of code get KYC and PII Vaulting running in less than a day. Best of all, Footprint is as simple to use as Apple Pay. These innovations in the data privacy space are essential, and Footprint is best positioned to create them.
Our take: Everyone hates filling out forms. A company making that easier will become a critical part of the tech stack for FinTech companies (and others) to improve the experience for their customers. And as we continue to invest in the future of New York, we know founders like Eli will be central to this city’s development.
Further reading: “Footprint wants to change how companies collect, store and share personal data” via TechCrunch
