INSTNT pitches at Plug and Play’s Fintech Batch 11 demo day in June 2020.
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So many good financial product/marketing ideas are rejected due to fraud concerns. Yes, fraud happens, just ask the Washington and Ohio state unemployment departments which each issued about $500M in fraudulent benefits in the early days of the pandemic (Washington State clawed half of it back, but it’s still the biggest fraud in state history).

But fraud concerns needn’t stop you in your tracks. Risks that can’t be mitigated with good procedures can usually be priced into the product. However, sometimes you may not have enough volume or reserves to shield your organization from catastrophic fraud or procedural errors.

Enter INSTNT. The NYC-based startup, founded just 15 months ago, is offering to cover financial fraud of new customers on both the deposit and credit side. And surprisingly, INSTNT isn’t even an insurance company. It’s an online account opening specialist with an eye-popping product benefit.

I first came across them at Finovate Fall last year (2019) where founders Sunil Madhu and Mimi Salcedo showed off the new company for the first time. The founders bring relevant experience to INSTNT with Madhu having previously founded ID verification specialist Socure and Salcedo having founded a game-based savings app, Win-Win, after a 5-year stint at BBVA’s Simple digital bank.

The company has raised $5M at and had 5 employees. At its PlugandPlay pitch this summer (see top of page), the company said it is planning to raise a Series A this fall.

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