Truework, which helps verify information during loan applications, home purchases, and employment screenings, has raised $2.9m.
The seed round was led by Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures, with participation from Founder Collective, Menlo Ventures and Crunchfund according to a blog post by co-founder/CEO Ryan Sandler.
Sandler, previously a senior product manager at LinkedIn, co-founded Truework alongside Ethan Winchell and Victor Kabdebon. “When Ethan, Victor, and I began to realize the lack of privacy protections provided by existing vendors — and that employees and employers often had little insight into how their data was exchanged between companies — we decided to team up and build a better solution,” Sandler said in the post.
Together, the trio realised that industry at large needed a new paradigm for how sensitive data is shared. “ From the beginning, we wanted to make it incredibly simple for HR teams to automate this manual and compliance-heavy process, while putting employees in control of their own data by requiring their explicit approval.”
Based in San Francisco, Truework aims to give employers and employees control over their own data, with its goal to help HR teams become more efficient, secure, and transparent.
HR teams can get started by adding Truework’s app to their company’s existing HR/payroll system. When a request comes in, the company verifies the identity of the third party and sends an authorisation email to the employee to approve the request. With laws changing over what type of information can be released to whom, and international privacy regulations like GDPR around the corner, the company aims to ease the compliance headache for HR teams.
The employee is able to view the exact information that will be released, and can request changes from HR if anything is incorrect or out of date. Once approved, the information is shared with the third party through its secure, online platform. All the data is transmitted over secure HTTPS using TLS 1.2. This is the same data transmission encryption used by banks and other financial institutions.
In December, we launched a pilot with a handful of early customers, including Trunk Club, The Motley Fool, and Figure Eight (fka Crowdflower).
Sandler added, “Right now we are focused on building and scaling the best employment verification product possible that employers and employees will love and trust.
“Yet, employment verifications are one of many back-office processes that are vital for a healthy financial system but have been mired in legacy approaches with little regard for consumers’ privacy. Over time, we aim to grow the Truework platform to empower consumers to securely and selectively verify other sensitive data, such as identity, credit, and other financial information.”
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