Back in 2015, Thomas “Tom” Cronkright and Lawrence Duthler, co-owners of a title agency in Grand Rapids, Michigan, took a six-figure punch to the face, $180K gone, wired into the void by a fraudster with better phishing skills than a Russian catfisher in a Florida condo. But instead of folding, they got surgical. Two years, zero shortcuts, and one hard truth later: the real estate system is built on blind trust in a world full of liars. So they built CertifID, a SaaS platform that doesn’t just prevent wire fraud, it declares war on it.
Fast forward to 2025. Wire fraud in real estate is still booming, because it’s easier to impersonate a title agent than get a date on Hinge, but so is CertifID. Today they announced $47.5 million in Series C funding, led by the razor-sharp minds at Centana Growth Partners, with returning conviction from Arthur Ventures, who backed the company in Seed, Series A, and Series B. When the same investors keep showing up to the table, it’s not luck. It’s blood, sweat, and validated scale.
Under Tyler Adams, CertifID’s Co-Founder and CEO, ex-BCG Digital Ventures, current fraud-slaying architect, the company has already prevented $1.3 billion in potential losses, verified over a million mortgage payoffs, and recovered $100M+ for fraud victims. Those aren’t vanity metrics. That’s ground game. That’s system-level impact.
What makes CertifID dangerous, in the best way, is the triple threat: proprietary AI that spots anomalies faster than your credit card company, in-platform fund movement via the Payments.io acquisition, and $5 million in direct insurance coverage per transaction. Oh, and it’s SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS compliant, so yes, the grown-ups in compliance are smiling, too.
With Ben Warren running finance, Greg Slowiak and Maximillian Kirchoff leveling up tech, Claudia Lee amplifying the brand, and Stephen Tuuk building out insurance services, this isn’t a startup, it’s a full-stack defense system for real estate’s most overlooked vulnerability.
This round fuels expansion across engineering, sales, fraud recovery, and new AI capabilities. Expect deeper integrations, broader market reach, and a louder message: the days of blind wire transfers are over.
Props to Paul Damato from Michigan Capital Network, Eric Byunn from Centana Growth Partners, and Patrick Meenan from Arthur Ventures for backing a company that doesn’t just talk security, it builds it, sells it, and lives it.
