Vouched is a company that provides AI-based identity verification and fraud prevention solutions. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Vouched CEO Peter Horadan to gain a better understanding of the company.
Peter Horadan’s Background
Please tell me more about your background. Horadan said:
“I’ve made a career out of riding waves of technology change. In the 90s at Microsoft, I wrote the first ever online banking software, back when the Internet was brand new. (Am I dating myself? lol). In the 2000s, I led the engineering team that created the SaaS version of Concur Expense. That was before Salesforce, before people even used the word “SaaS”. We replaced paper expense report processes where people printed out a spreadsheet, literally stapled receipts to it, and then sent it in one of those yellow interoffice envelopes to accounting. Then it got put in a banker’s box with other reports and stored in a salt mine for 7 years. We replaced all that with automated processes.”
“In the 2010s, I was CTO at Avalara, the sales tax company. People say ‘What’s so hard about sales tax – just multiply by 10%, dummy.’ But it’s phenomenally complicated, with 11,000 taxing jurisdictions just in the US with all their special rules and ifs, ands, or buts. People used to do their taxes manually – we saw it was inevitable that this would be automated as well. And we did, and it took off like crazy.”
“Long story short – we created a ton of value – both for our customers and for us. Concur was a $8 billion exit. Avalara, $16 billion.”
“The reason is simple. First, the market is every business in the world. Everyone has the same problems. Second, these are essential business processes – you cannot not do them. And third, real ROI is created – we actually made these operations more efficient. And that benefited our customers, and us as well.”
Why Vouched?
So what led you to Vouched? Horadan shared:
“I am convinced that the next frontier of software automation is in identity. Most people give little thought to logging into things. But Identity is about to change in 2 very big ways that are going to cause every business in the world to fundamentally rethink how they identify their customers moving forward. And it’s going to change how we work together on the Internet.”
“There’s never been a more exciting time to be in Identity.”
Big Changes
OK, so what are these big changes? Horadan explained:
“The first is Mobile Drivers’ Licenses (MDLs). For our whole lives, we’re used to identifying ourselves with this physical plastic card the government gives us and we carry around in our wallet. But over the next few years, this will be replaced with a digital-first document that lives on our phone.”
“Unlike the physical drivers’ license, the MDL is immune to tampering.”
“And, more importantly, it’s very easy to present your MDL in a browser window or from your phone.”
“We believe that once MDLs become commonplace, it will become standard for the sites we interact with to ask us to supply our digital identity online. This will profoundly change how we exist on the Internet.”
“The second is software agents. Imagine if Chat GPT could do stuff for you – like not just plan but actually book your next vacation. Or track when you are low on meds and request refills. This is the coming world of software agents. They will be profoundly useful.”
“But if agents are going to act on our behalf, we have a lot of problems to solve. First,, agents will need their own identity, so we can tell good from bad agents. And we’ll need a way to track what agents are authorized to work for what people. And so on. We are in the very early days here, but some estimates are that there will be more agents than humans doing work on the Internet by as early as next year. So we have a lot of foundation work to get in place.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Horadan reflected:
“I love the team at Vouched. We are a remote-first company, and to keep our relationships fresh, we get the entire team together in person every 6 months. If you saw us, you’d think we all knew each other since high school. It’s a very cohesive group and always a terrific team to be around.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Horadan explained:
“Our foundation is in remote identity verification. There is a set of transactions for which you must prove strong identity – opening a bank account, talking to a doctor or receiving a prescription, for enting property. If you want to do these online, you have to prove who you are.”
“Vouched has pioneered this process. We ask people to show their physical ID to the camera. We can that ID, parse the information, check for tampering and fraud, and ensure the person at the camera is the same person on the ID. All in real time – the average person completes our process in just 8 seconds.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since its launch? Horadan noted:
“As with everything in fraudops, it’s an escalating war against fraud. This year has seen a stunning acceleration of the potency of deep fake tools. There are stories everywhere of actual parents who were fooled into wiring money by a phone call from their kid in crisis … only to later learn their kid is safe in their dorm room and they were scammed by a convincing deep fake. Or in one of the more amusing cases, a video came out of UK political leaders Nigel Farage, Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, and others playing Minecraft on a secret British parliament server. Of course, it was a fake. But it was so convincing that the candidates’ campaigns had to put out a press release clarifying this was not in fact, their candidates.”
“There is an accelerating race of capabilities on both sides of the bad and good, and we need to stay ahead.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Horadan cited:
“We’ve seen tremendous recognition. On Monday, I’m getting on a plane to attend the American Business Awards, where Vouched is honored to be awarded the Golden Stevie award for fastest growing company. Earlier this year, we won Best Identity Verification Solution from the FinTech Breakthrough Awards. It’s terrific to see the recognition.”
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Horadan highlighted::
“Yes – there are so many. The ones I am most proud of are when we help our customers make money. For example, we have a customer – a major online drug retailer. They are required by regulation to identify their patents before prescribing them medicine. They had implemented a home-grown solution, but they were seeing a 60% abandonment rate. And on top of that, they were still subject to some fraud. The implemented Vouched, and because of our obsessive focus on an easy-to-complete process, their abandonment rate dropped to just 5%. And the fraud was all but eliminated. The entire team takes pride in helping our customers grow their businesses.’
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Horadan concluded:
Everyone at Vouched is excited to be building the future of Identity. It will be fascinating to see how things evolve as IDs go digital and as software agents start to participate in online workflows on our behalf. The future of Identity is being written now. The best is yet to come.
