FDJ United Ventures has backed Paris-based trust and identity infrastructure startup Prelude in a $20m Series A, bringing the company’s total funding to $27m since its 2023 founding.
The round was led by 20VC and included participation from existing investors Singular, Seedcamp, and Deel. Angel investors include Steffen Tjerrild, co-founder and COO of Synthesia, Antoine Le Nel, CMO at Revolut, and Barney Hussey-Yeo, founder and CEO of Cleo. The investment follows an $8m seed round in 2024, in which FDJ United Ventures also participated.
From Phone Verification to Full Trust Infrastructure
Prelude was founded in 2023 by Matias Berny and Quentin Le Bras, both former engineers at Zenly, the location-sharing app acquired and later shut down by Snap. The pair built Prelude to address what the company describes as a structural failure in digital onboarding: inflated SMS costs from pump fraud, high drop-off at the verification screen, and fraudulent accounts that clear initial checks and cause damage later.
The platform combines phone verification data, device integrity signals, carrier and network information, and behavioural patterns into a single risk engine. That engine generates continuous trust scores throughout a session rather than only at signup, allowing platforms to approve, challenge, or block users in real time. Prelude currently handles phone number verification across 230 countries.
Clients include gaming platform Voodoo, social app BeReal, and music generation startup Suno. The company also counts an unnamed major social network among its users.
Sixfold Growth and Two New Products
Prelude grew both revenue and its customer base sixfold over the past year. The company claims customers reduce verification costs by an average of 40% after switching from legacy providers, which it characterises as charging high rates, offering limited analytics, and providing slow support. Its main competitors are Twilio Verify, which leads in enterprise SMS verification, and Telesign, which offers phone-based identity and fraud risk scoring.
Alongside the funding, Prelude is launching two new products. Prelude Auth will run continuous trust assessments throughout the full user lifecycle, extending well beyond the single verification event at signup. Prelude Intel API will provide real-time, carrier-grade network data during onboarding, giving platforms access to telco signals that self-reported information cannot replicate.
“The old playbook is broken. CAPTCHAs don’t stop bots anymore, and a single fraud signal won’t tell you who’s really there. Telling a real user from a fake one is now a business intelligence problem, not a checkbox.” — Matias Berny, co-founder and CEO, Prelude
Paul Bonnet, General Partner at 20VC, cited the fraud exposure built into legacy verification infrastructure as central to the investment case.
“Most companies running phone verification get scammed: pump fraud, opaque pricing, nonexistent customer support. Prelude is the only platform solving all three pains at once: their customers are cutting verification costs by over 40%, converting more users, and actually getting a response when something breaks. Matias and Quentin solved this at Zenly, then built it for everyone else.” — Paul Bonnet, General Partner, 20VC
The iGaming Angle
FDJ United Ventures is the corporate venture arm of FDJ United, one of Europe’s largest lottery and gaming operators. It operates with a €111m investment capacity and targets early-stage technology companies across gaming, AI, and fintech. Prior investments include micro-betting data specialist nVenue and iLottery platform Random State.
For iGaming operators, Prelude’s infrastructure addresses a compliance-adjacent pressure that has been building across European markets. KYC obligations require operators to verify player identities at onboarding and, in a growing number of jurisdictions, on an ongoing basis. Platforms relying on fragmented verification tools face cost exposure from SMS pump fraud and the risk of fraudulent accounts passing checks that were not built to catch them. The rising cost of non-compliance across European regulated markets has made the quality of identity infrastructure a commercial question as much as a regulatory one.
FDJ United’s stated innovation priorities include simplified KYC and stronger responsible gaming controls through improved player onboarding, making the Prelude investment a direct extension of that strategy. The group’s 2025 financial results reflect a business operating across approximately 15 regulated markets, with particular exposure to the French and Irish lottery monopoly alongside competitive online gaming licences across Europe.
The Series A proceeds will go toward deeper telecom partnerships, expanded API coverage across Europe, further development of machine learning fraud detection, and hiring across engineering, partnerships, and customer success. With the addition of Auth and Intel API, Prelude’s stated aim is to replace the current patchwork of disconnected onboarding tools with a single infrastructure layer covering the full arc from first device signal to ongoing session management.
Source: Prelude
