Pindrop Raises $75 Million Led by Google Capital to Stop Voice Fraud and Identity eft

GV, Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, Citi Ventures and Felicis Also Invest To Support Massive Demand For Pindrop's Voice Security and Authentication Platform

Atlanta, GA January 28, 2016 - Pindrop, the pioneer in voice-fraud prevention and authentication, today raised a $75 million Series C funding round led by Google Capital with participation from GV, Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, Citi Ventures and Felicis Ventures, bringing the total funding to $122 million to date. Pindrop currently protects the phone calls of three of the four largest banks in the United States as well as many top insurance companies, government agencies, and retailers.

As physical security and cybersecurity receive more attention, attackers are moving to using the telephone to commit their crime. The result is a phone fraud, identity theft, and social engineering epidemic that measures over $20 billion annually in the US alone. In 2015, social engineering over the phone was responsible for the account takeover and monetization activity for both data breaches and mobile payments.

Additionally, voice has become the de facto interface for the Internet of Things and intelligent assistants. Voice-enabled devices are creating new opportunities for identity theft and fraud. Pindrop's patented phoneprinting technology is addressing that gap by providing a solution that analyzes voice interactions to authenticate customers and detect identity theft leading to fraud.

Voice fraud is a large, expensive and unsolved problem for many enterprises, and Pindrop is taking a truly unique approach, helping its customers save millions of dollars by preventing voice fraud, said Gene Frantz, partner at Google Capital. As voice commands become the standard across intelligent assistants, cars, and the Internet of Things, Pindrop is creating the leading authentication and security solution for this exploding market. We are excited to be an investor based on the companys momentum, unique technology and large market opportunity.

Working closely with Google Capital gives us amazing access to their expertise in phone and voice related technologies, said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, Pindrop CEO and co-founder. Voice is the future and today's investment will help accelerate our global expansion and allow us to invest more dollars into research and development as we continue building the definitive platform that enables security, trust and identity in the voice world.

2015 Performance

Pindrop continued to accelerate its growth in 2015. Milestones included:

Pindrop saved tens of millions of dollars for enterprise customers.

Pindrop's revenue tripled in the last year.

Pindrop's customer base doubled in the last year including adding two of the top three banks in the US.

More than 360 million calls were protected with Pindrop's flagship anti-fraud call center solution.

In 2015, Pindrop added world-class members to the management team including:

Matt Peachey joined as GM EMEA (previously at Cisco, IronPort and Citrix)

John Martin joined as VP of Product (previously at Riverbed and NetApp)

Mike Vandiver joined as CFO (previously at SecureWorks and IngeniousMed)

Ken Shuman joined as Head of Global Comms (previously at Trulia and NerdWallet)

About Pindrop

Pindrop is the pioneer in voice fraud prevention and authentication. Pindrop provides enterprise solutions to reduce fraud losses and authentication expense for some of the largest call centers in the world. Pindrop's patented Phoneprinting technology can identify, locate and authenticate phone devices uniquely just from the call audio thereby detecting fraudulent calls as well as verifying legitimate callers. Pindrop has been selected by the world's largest banks, insurers, brokerages and retailers, detecting over 80% of fraud, even for attackers never seen before. Pindrop's solutions are allowing customers to reduce call time and improve their customers' experience even while reducing fraud losses. Pindrop was founded in 2011 and is venture backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Citi Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Google Capital, GV and IVP. In total, Pindrop has raised $122 million.

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LINK:	http://www.ivp.com/news/press-release/pindrop-raises--75-million-led-b...
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