SentiLink

SentiLink is an American identity verification and fraud prevention company founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. Its software is used by financial institutions to detect synthetic identity fraud, identity theft, and other forms of first-party fraud during account application. By 2024, SentiLink’s technology was used by over 300 U.S. financial institutions.

SentiLink was founded in 2017 by Naftali Harris and Maxwell Blumenfeld, former data scientists at Affirm, where they worked on risk management and fraud detection systems. While at Affirm, they identified applications with identical names and birthdates but different Social Security numbers, recognizing them as synthetic identities. They established SentiLink to address identity-related fraud in financial services.

In 2019, SentiLink raised $14 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, followed by a $70 million Series B round in 2021 led by Craft Ventures, bringing total funding to $85 million.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Harris testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on synthetic identity fraud, noting that fraudulent activity had exploited relief programs such as the Paycheck Protection Program.

In 2020, SentiLink was among the first companies to participate in the Social Security Administration’s Electronic Consent-Based Social Security Number Verification system, which enables real-time validation of Social Security numbers.

In 2024, SentiLink published research linking data leaked on the dark web to real-world identity theft attempts, indicating that individuals whose Social Security numbers were circulated online were more likely to be targeted by fraud.

In 2025, SentiLink achieved FedRAMP Ready status from the U.S. Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, certifying that its systems met federal cloud security standards.

SentiLink develops identity verification tools that use machine learning to analyze identity and behavioral data. Its software detects synthetic and stolen identities and supports regulatory compliance through Know Your Customer (KYC) tools.

In 2023, the company introduced Facets, a data intelligence product for fraud detection and risk modeling. Its tools address check-fraud schemes, including check “washing,” and provide fraud-insight analysis for financial institutions.

SentiLink’s software has been used to detect Assumed Identity Abuse, a form of identity theft linked to organized crime. The company was involved in detecting a criminal network targeting former international scholars, in which stolen or assumed identities were used to commit fraud.

In 2023, SentiLink partnered with Scienaptic AI to combine identity verification with credit decisioning tools.

In 2024, Consumer Portfolio Services (CPS), an auto finance company, integrated SentiLink’s software into its lending operations.

In 2025, Yardi Systems integrated SentiLink’s fraud detection technology into its ScreeningWorks Pro platform to address synthetic rental application fraud involving Credit Privacy Numbers.

SentiLink joined the FICO Marketplace, allowing its technology to be integrated into FICO’s platform for identity verification and fraud detection. Its tools have also been integrated into identity orchestration and risk management platforms such as Alloy.

Research cited by SentiLink in 2025 indicated that fraudulent auto loan applications had increased during coordinated attacks on certain lenders, with fraud involving real personally identifiable information more common than synthetic identities.

The Federal Reserve has identified synthetic identity fraud as a growing risk to the U.S. payments system. A 2023 Federal Reserve paper described it as the use of legitimate and fictitious data to create new identities. Industry estimates suggest that synthetic identity fraud caused losses exceeding US$20 billion in 2020.

• 2023: Included in Forbes Fintech 50 list
• 2024: Named to the Forbes Fintech 50 in the Wall Street and Enterprise category
• 2024: CEO Naftali Harris named among American Banker’s Innovators of the Year
• 2025: Listed in the Forbes Fintech 50 for the third consecutive year

• Identity verification
• Identity theft
• Know your customer