VeryAI, a Proof of Reality platform focused on verifying human identity in AI-driven digital environments, has announced a $10 million seed funding round. The round was led by Polychain Capital, with participation from the Berggruen Institute, Anagram, and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko as an angel investor.
The funding coincides with the launch of VeryAI's first product: a hardware-free palm scan verification system designed to combat the growing risks of AI-generated identities, deepfakes, and Sybil attacks. The company highlights that as synthetic content becomes easier to generate, traditional authentication methods like facial recognition, CAPTCHAs, and two-factor codes face increasing limitations. Industry data cited shows the time for attackers to compromise systems has increased by 22% since 2023, with breaches now occurring in an average of 48 minutes.
VeryAI's technology centers on palm biometrics, a form of identification noted for being highly unique and rarely exposed publicly. The system captures palm scans through a standard smartphone camera, requiring no specialized hardware. The company claims its verification model achieves a false acceptance rate of roughly 1 in 10 million for a single hand, compared to around 1 in 1 million for many facial recognition systems. Using both hands reportedly reduces the false acceptance rate to approximately 1 in 100 trillion.
The platform is built on the Solana blockchain, leveraging its fast finality and low transaction costs to record palm-scan identity registrations on-chain. To support privacy and interoperability, VeryAI integrates Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) and the Solana Attestation Service (SAS). This allows users to verify their identity across decentralized applications without exposing personal data. The company is also integrating Light Protocol's ZK compression technology to store only state roots on-chain while validating compressed state off-chain, aiming to reduce storage costs while maintaining security.
VeryAI operates a B2B model, enabling crypto exchanges, fintech companies, and other platforms to integrate palm verification into their authentication systems. Partners are charged based on monthly user verifications. The company emphasizes a privacy-first approach, stating it does not store raw palm images. Instead, it retains irreversible feature representations that cannot be reconstructed, and upon verification, generates a non-traceable identifier that proves an action occurred without linking it to a specific individual.
"Privacy is a human right. But deepfakes and synthetic content present weaknesses that current systems simply can’t keep up with," said Zach Meltzer, founder and CEO of VeryAI. "VeryAI is restoring trust in identity verification by replacing outdated methods with solutions that are accurate, private and frictionless." Meltzer previously helped scale Galxe to over 6,000 partners and 34 million users.
Olaf Carlson-Wee of Polychain Capital commented, "Every major platform, whether in finance, crypto, or social media, is grappling with the risks of AI-driven fraud. VeryAI’s palm verification technology closes that gap with accuracy, privacy and accessibility that no other biometric identity solution has yet to match."
The company has also added Matthew Groh, Assistant Professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, as an advisor and is launching a research collaboration with the university to improve human resilience to deepfakes. The $10 million in funding will be used to expand the Proof of Reality platform and develop additional tools to distinguish AI-generated identities from verifiable human users.
