SheerID closes $64M to grow its digital verification platform and accelerate growth in identity marketing

Today, 80 percent of marketers felt more pressure to meet customer acquisition and revenue goals than they did the year prior, according to a recent report from WBR Insights, citing brand differentiation as well as the current privacy climate as their top two concerns. This is why B2C marketers across a number of industries are turning to identity marketing, a new form of personalization focused on winning over consumer tribes that align with the brand’s promise. Enter SheerID, a tech startup and an enterprise verification platform that provides instant verification while minimizing friction and mitigating fraud.

Today, SheerID announced it has raised $64 million equity round to expand its platform across multiple geographies; builds on growth momentum. SheerID pioneered a new privacy-friendly personalization technique that allows brands to tap into the power of marketing to consumer tribes, such as students, teachers, and the military. The round was led by CVC Growth Partners (“CVC Growth”). In conjunction with the funding, SheerID also announced CVC Growth will join SheerID’s board alongside Centana Growth Partners and Voyager Capital, which led SheerID’s earlier financing rounds in 2017 and 2015, respectively.

Founded in 2011 by David Shear, Jake Weatherly, and Marci Hansen, SheerID is redefining how enterprises create instant trust in a digital world. The SheerID digital verification platform instantly verifies the identity of any individual or business to ensure the integrity of exclusive offers and authenticated experiences.

The new funding comes on the heels of 450% revenue growth over the last three years, achieving the rank of 243 in this year’s Deloitte and Touche Fast 500. Over the last year, SheerID has expanded its customer base to include more than 200 customers across a diverse range of Fortune 2000 B2C brands such as Target, Amazon, Lowe’s, Comcast, Google, T-Mobile and Urban Outfitters. Brands use the SheerID Identity Marketing Platform to identify and acquire consumer tribes like students, teachers, or the military with personalized offers backed by instant verification via 9,000 authoritative data sources.

“Our exponential growth is driven by major shifts in personalization, privacy, and performance marketing. Marketers are struggling to capture the attention of consumers who want more control over their personal data and less uninvited marketing from brands,” said Jake Weatherly, CEO of SheerID. “Our platform allows brands to create offers that honor and recognize an entire consumer tribe, increasing trust and word-of-mouth, and decreasing customer acquisition costs.”

“Gen Z is the future of streaming media. We knew our growth potential with this audience was vast and our personalized offer to students has taken off,” said Cheri Davies, Senior Director of Acquisition Marketing for Comcast. “Partnering with SheerID has given us a powerful new way to capture and retain our ideal customer segment.”

These consumer tribes share important aspects of their identity, such as their life stage, occupation, and affiliations. They are socially connected and readily share information with each other, like special product offers and brand experiences, that are exclusively provided by brands to their group. This has the double-benefit of increasing marketing reach while decreasing customer acquisition costs, often producing ROAS (return on ad spend) results of 25:1 or higher.

“The most effective marketing does more than convert an audience, it provides a service they value,” said Lauryn Nwankpa, Head of Social Impact for Headspace. “With SheerID, we can create unique offers for students and teachers that support them and move them to spread the word, which benefits the entire educational community and our business. Our identity marketing campaigns generate a powerful ripple effect that’s hard to match.”

In addition to bringing on new customers, SheerID has expanded to include 120 employees, and will continue to grow in various areas of the business including marketing, sales, and engineering. This will allow SheerID to expand its platform so companies in all geographies can engage an even broader range of consumer tribes related to occupation, interests, causes, and affiliations worldwide.