Kyle Mack is co-founder and chief executive of Middesk, the San Francisco, California, company whose APIs verify businesses for banks, lenders and fintechs. A Vermont native who learned identity and risk at the background-check company Checkr, he started Middesk in January 2019 with his co-founder, Kurt.
From Vermont to San Francisco
When he left Vermont for San Francisco, his parents told him he could always come home and join the family business if things did not work out. That safety net, he has said, let him go out on a limb. For almost two years before Middesk he kept an Evernote file called "Notes to Myself," listing everything he wanted to remember when he started a company, and he still reviews it.
From People to Companies
At Checkr he worked on credentialing, the checks that let companies trust the people they hire. The founders wanted to take what they had learned about the identity and risk of people and apply it to companies, making it easier for businesses to get bank accounts and loans. Middesk went through Y Combinator, and its first two customers were Plaid and Checkr.
Poring Over Reports
The team learned the most by verifying businesses and poring over tens of thousands of reports by hand, which showed every edge case and the nuances that vary by state. Every new employee still spends a day doing manual business verification. When the Paycheck Protection Program sent customers asking for new data on which businesses to lend to, one week of work on an existing API gave them what they needed. "Don't mistake motion for progress" is a line he repeats to himself.
In July 2022 Middesk raised a $57M Series B co-led by Insight Partners and Canapi Ventures, with Sequoia and Accel. It now supports about 500 customers, including two of the largest US banks.
He has said he hopes people will spend more time with family and friends. The founder who left Vermont with a promise that he could always go home has built a company whose product is the same assurance for businesses: proof that they are who they say they are.
