In 2007, I started my career as an Analyst at UBS Investment Bank and later joined Malabar Investments, a midmarket value investing hedge fund. While I admired value investing, my inclination towards private markets led me to EmeraldWorld International in London, where I raised $33.3 million to dominate Colombia’s emerald market. During this time, I also explored startup ideas, which ultimately fueled my passion for technology ventures.

My journey into startups accelerated when I attended numerous Startup Weekends, and I later joined SpringBoard IoT, developing Tap2WiFi, a proximity marketing platform. My enthusiasm for tech led me to launch TagTech Media and IndoVentures, but challenges in India’s market pushed me to explore different avenues in tech.

After a few ventures and a successful exit at Bollyverse LLC, I took a sabbatical following two wind-downs. However, a near-fatal car crash in 2017 left me in recovery for two years. Post-recovery, I joined Truecaller, where I managed the iOS team to successfully rebuild our iOS app, doubling our global iOS user base within a few weeks of launch. This experience reignited my entrepreneurial drive, and in late 2022, I co-founded Passvoy, a cross-border payments app, but regulatory setbacks pushed us back to square one.

That’s when Verifany was born. Initially, we set out to build an identity verification tool using bank account data. We realised that bank account data provided an unchangeable and reliable way to authenticate someone’s identity in a world where deepfakes and fake profiles are on the rise. However, as we dug deeper, we discovered the potential of this data to answer more than just identity questions. Accessing bank data opened doors to verifying financial health, assessing creditworthiness, and much more. This led us down a rabbit hole where we saw the opportunity to not just verify identity, but to build an entire C2C financial verification business.

Verifany evolved into a comprehensive platform that leverages bank account data not only to verify identity but also to provide financial insights—bridging the trust gap between individuals. Verifany’s Alpha launched in Oct 2024 in the UK, starting with Free Income Verification, but our vision is to transform financial verification for consumers catering to 50 use cases across 14 customer segments and eventually becoming the ChatGPT on top of bank account data.