One of the most famous hackers in the world, Kevin Mitnick, published a book about his exploits — “The Art of Deception” — after he got out of prison. This guy broke into corporations, government agencies – even the FBI cell phone network to find out they they were closing in on him. Surprisingly, the most interesting “a-ha’s” of the book weren’t related to his prowess behind the keyboard but something much simpler — he was a master of “social-engineering.” Kevin would get unsuspecting staffers on the phone and trick them to reveal passwords, backdoor locations, and critical tidbits of information to enable his hacking. He used well-worn techniques like urgency, name-dropping, and a folksy familiarity that were popular in the Depression era and updated them for the modern times.
Kevin Mitnick was not alone.
Most of the largest online fraud hauls begin with a live telephone conversation. The existing caller ID infrastructure is useless as there are plenty of software options available for fraudsters to spin up millions of fake numbers and spoof the origin of the call. Quite honestly, there really isn’t a good way to authenticate who is on the other end of the line other than a series of painful security questions and even those are getting harder — my great aunt’s maiden name? There’s just got to be a better way…
While working on his PhD degree in 2009, Vijay Balasubramaniyan, had an unusual thought: could each phone call possibly have its own unique acoustic signature? Specifically, are there patterns in the sounds, packet loss and latency that could tell you the network, phone type and specific location the call was coming from? After some investigation, Vijay decided to focus his efforts on proving out the technology and the results became the core of his PhD thesis.
In 2011, Vijay completed his studies and hooked up with Paul Judge, a fellow Georgia Tech PhD alum and security industry veteran, to co-found Pindrop Security. The company’s technology is a commercialization of Vijay’s unique primary research and patents. Pindrop provides an enterprise solution that helps prevent phone-based fraud. Vijay’s pioneering acoustical fingerprinting technology detects fraudulent calls and authenticates legitimate callers, helping customers eliminate financial losses and reduce operational costs.
I’m very pleased to announce that Andreessen Horowitz will be leading Pindrop’s $11M Series A financing round. Our friends at Citi Ventures, will also be participating in the financing round. Here’s why we’re so excited to work with Vijay and Paul:
Founder/market fit. This is really our kind of opportunity — a very unique technology with virtually all the intellectual property invented by the founder. And it works! Vijay developed and patented the core technology while pursuing his doctorate at Georgia Tech, a school renowned for its cyber security and signal processing research.
Focus on voice fraud. As much as we talk about data overtaking voice — every customer we talk to has seen voice calls increase linearly with customers. And voice is becoming even more of an attractive alternative for fraudsters as the online channel is maturing and becoming more secure.
Very differentiated technology. It’s a very differentiated solution and the only one that isn’t purely fingerprint based so it detects zero-day attacks. Customers rave, “we are finding whole new fraud rings that had previously gone undetected…”
A track record of execution. Since we participated in Pindrop’s seed financing, Vijay and Paul have executed to plan in a remarkable way — they launched the product and had a stable of excited, apostle customers. The game film on their progress has been universally positive.
I’m super excited about joining Pindrop’s board of directors and look forward to helping Vijay and Paul bring this technology to everywhere people are answering phones and wondering who is on the other side of the line…
The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.
This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/.
Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.