How CertifID LLC is helping agencies spot and stop scams

After Sun Title Agency LLC, based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was scammed out of some $180,000 by a fake real estate deal created by hackers, they were able to trace the money, contact the banks who were unknowingly involved in the scam and get back $140,000 of what they lost.

And then they went a step further — they founded another company, CertifID LLC, to verify identities in real time on both the buy and sell side of electronic real-estate transactions. Are the buyers and sellers legit? Is the money real? Is it going where it is supposed to go?

In 2005, lawyers Lawrence Duthler and Tom Cronkright, who went to Wayne State University's law school together, started a real estate transaction and title company. Today, Sun Title is a prosperous business with seven offices in western Michigan.

Duthler continues to manage the title business, while Cronkright devotes his time to CertifID as CEO. Since its founding in late 2017, the company has protected more than $1.2 billion in wire transfers. Early in 2018 it raised a seed funding round of $1 million, led by Grand Rapids-based Wakestream Ventures LLC, a funding arm of DeVos family office. And early this year it finished raising a follow-on round of $1.9 million, led by the Grand Rapids-based Grand Angels and joined by Wakestream and Ann Arbor Spark.

The $100,000 from Spark came from winning a pitch contest at the first annual Michigan Angel Summit in Southfield back in November. The pitch contest capped a day of networking and educational programs for angel investors across the state.

"We're excited about where they are going," said Tim Parker, the Grand Angels' president. "They're really scaling quickly."

"Tom has deep domain experience as an industry executive. Through his own experience, he identified a problem and went out and solved it," said Mike DeVries, the chief investment officer at Wakestream. "The size of their potential market? It's crazy how big it is. We're pretty bullish on Tom. He's a great founder and salesman."

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