Prelude raises $8M for fraud-resistant SMS verification API development

French startup Prelude has raised $8 million Seed funding led by Singular and Seedcamp.

The company is developing a fraud-resistant SMS verification API.  

Founded in 2022 by Matias Berny and Quentin Le Bras, Prelude was born from the founders’ experience at Zenly — which was then acquired by Snap Inc. in 2017. At that time, they saw firsthand how costly and opaque SMS verification had become — making it one of Zenly’s largest expenses. 

They also discovered that up to 30 per cent of their SMS budget was being lost to fraud, a problem overlooked by traditional providers.  

Prelude identifies the most cost-effective routes to send messages by serving as a smart broker between businesses and mobile network operators. The company is agnostic to the message price while maintaining transparency and efficiency. 

On average, Prelude’s clients have reduced verification costs by  40 per cent and achieved a 95 per cent conversion rate on verification messages.  

According to Matias Berny, founder and CEO of Prelude:   

“Onboarding conversion is one of the toughest challenges in driving growth, and that’s the problem we aim to solve for our customers.

We’re building new services to help them master user onboarding, trust, and retention.” 

Henri Tilloy, Partner at Singular, commented: 

“Prelude’s practical solution offers a great developer experience, delivering immediate and tangible value by helping businesses cut costs, enhance fraud protection and improve conversation rates  — all with just a single line of code.”

Prelude works with dozens of enterprise customers worldwide across a range of verticals, including social services, finance, travel, retail and food technology, in partnership with companies such as BeReal, Locket, Alma and Bitstack.  

In just two years, the startup has protected over 100 million user accounts across 230 regions and applied the same service principles to its transactional API. 

Prelude will use the funding to expand its platform beyond one-time password verification, to become a pioneer in mobile-first onboarding with multiple APIs to help its customers verify,  onboard, and trust new users as they enter their mobile app. 

Lead image: Prelude. Photo: uncredited.