ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) - A startup here is looking to transform identity verification by making it fast and cheap.

Stile at https://stile.id/ is run by brothers Vlad and Alex Marinov. Alex Marinov serves as CEO. He owned a logistics business in Elk Grove before he sold it with about 160 employees to a private equity firm. 

“We started exploring this idea earlier in the year,” Alex Marinov said, “like January, February.” 

He and Vlad Marinov, who has banking experience, want to bring the cost of each verification down to 10 to 50 cents, Alex Marinov said. 

The company is now beta-testing its products. It has no customers and will need to do many verifications to be profitable. 

Identity verification is important, Alex Marinov said, recalling a scenario that played out in 2024. 

A controller for a company joined a Zoom call with whom she thought was her boss and the chief financial officer. Her aim was to approve a $20 million wire transfer. 

She approved it only to find out later the image and voice of her boss was fraudulent. 

“So that’s kind of the top problem we are trying to solve,” Alex Marinov said, adding that Stile has checks it can do to deter that type of fraud. 

One is a “liveness” check, Alex Marinov said. 

“Are you talking to an actual human (on) a Zoom call?” he said. “We actually have an ability to understand if it’s a human or not.” 

Stile can scan the face of the person to see whether it’s a 3D image. 

Stile has four employees, including the two brothers. The others are involved in marketing and quality assurance. 

Alex Marinov is confident Stile can achieve its aim. Because of artificial intelligence, Alex Marinov said, his team of four can compete with others that have raised $10 to $20 million to build an identity verification product. 

“We can do it for hundreds of thousands of dollars … just because of AI,” he said. 

Vlad has been surrounded by the problem of identity verification at multiple companies he’s worked for, he said.  

“This is a problem I’ve been thinking about for so many years in my career life,” he said. 

And now, he said, he has what it takes to prevent fraud by using his skills and the tactics of those committing fraud.