Incognia: A Comeback Story

Background

In January 2024, Incognia closed a $31M Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners, just three years after launching our original fraud prevention product.

We’ve made progress very quickly in the last few years. Only two years after first reaching $1M in ARR, our company surpassed $10M in ARR, matching some of the fastest-growing SaaS companies in history.?

Incognia currently has 100% trial conversion, zero customer churn, and a net revenue retention of 200%.

By January 2023, we hadn’t even used 50% of the funds we raised in our Series A, led by Point72 Ventures in May 2022, but we decided to put our foot on the gas to keep up with rapidly growing customer demand.

Throughout this journey, Incognia has secured nearly 400M mobile users and serves customers in over thirty countries. We’re at the forefront of a market that, though currently modest, is on the cusp of exponential growth, driven by advancements in AI, the growth of mobile technology, and the evolution of real-time payments and mobile IDs.

Everything seems exciting now, but it wasn’t easy getting here.

So as we celebrate this milestone, I’d like to take a moment to look back and share some lessons I’ve learned along this journey. I’m writing primarily with entrepreneurs in mind, but these insights can have value for anyone.

I’ve led Incognia for the past twelve years. During that time, we’ve weathered four pivots, three failed attempts to expand into the US, and three near-death experiences.

We got our start in a city called Recife, in the northeast of Brazil. In 2012, when I was twenty, my co-founders and I were the first entrepreneurs in that city to raise venture capital from global investors. Despite several unsuccessful initial attempts, we eventually found our niche with a product that revolutionized mobile marketing for physical retailers using indoor location technology. This venture not only generated tens of millions in revenue but also achieved profitability.

But the end of 2019 and the start of 2020 brought unprecedented challenges: competitive products from tech giants, stringent new privacy regulations, and the devastating impact of COVID-19.

Our revenue plummeted by over 95% in March 2020, pushing the company to the brink of collapse.?

We had to downsize and restart from scratch. Many people on the sidelines felt like it was over for us. But we survived, pivoted, and we’re now thriving.

The Pillars of Our Recovery

Incognia’s comeback was anchored on three foundational pillars:

1. Strong Vision:

A strong vision is critical. This can’t be overstated. Your vision is a beacon that guides your company through the storm.

In the case of Incognia, our vision was to dominate the market with a unique fraud prevention product that accurately identified users by leveraging the highest-quality data (rather than the highest quantity of data). We believed that the best data we could use was device and location signals, so we’ve doubled down on that. This vision wasn’t just a dream. It’s a strategic direction that we’ve constantly refined and communicated across the organization.

How do you determine whether your vision is strong? It’s simple: if people believe in your vision, they'll stay at your company.

But if you get this part wrong, it's probably game over, and you may not have the flexibility to pivot, so I strongly encourage you to spend time crafting and honing your vision. I'm glad that even during the most turbulent phase of our recovery, most people decided to stay.

2. Strong Culture:

Our culture at Incognia is built on trust, excellence, and ambition. These values aren’t just rhetoric; they’re the principles that have guided our every action and decision. It’s this culture that has enabled us to navigate through our toughest times and emerge stronger.

As CEO, my role has always extended beyond mere management. I’ve had to embody and promote these values. Every hiring and firing decision has been a step towards shaping and reinforcing our culture.

Unlike many companies, Incognia didn’t mimic the values of other successful companies. Instead, we carved our own path. We made sure that our values were a genuine reflection of what our team truly believed in.

3. Strong Team:

We wouldn’t have been able to make this comeback if we didn’t have a team composed of builders, evangelizers, and supporters.

Each group played a crucial role: the builders created and refined our product, the evangelists promoted it, and the supporters cared for our customers and team.

We also worked to create bridges between the teams so that they weren’t siloed, and I’d encourage you to do the same. For example, let the builders interact directly with your customers to ensure your product is meeting their needs, and avoid using proxies.

A Story of Resilience and Hope

Incognia's story is not just about financial success. It’s about resilience, adaptability, and unwavering commitment to a vision.?

My hope is that hearing about our journey will remind current and aspiring entrepreneurs of this:

The road to success is never easy. But with the right vision, culture, and team, even the most daunting challenges can be overcome.

With these pillars in place, your company can navigate through dark storms and emerge stronger and more determined than ever.

That’s our story so far. Stay tuned–we’ve got many more chapters coming.