Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 80% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Tan: Max Levchin personally invested $1M to lead Sift Science seed round

Jason Tan · 918 SaaS: Fraud Prevention Company Raises $54m, Passes 500 Customers · Jan 28, 2018 · at 6:35

Jason Tan, founder of Sift Science, recounts raising the company's initial seed round following their Y Combinator Demo Day.

0:00 / 0:10exact quote · 10.1s

720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark

“He wanted to lead our seed round. So he put a million dollars of his own money in and we raised a total of 1.6 million dollars back in September of 2001.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Max Levchin invested $1 million of his personal money to lead Sift Science's $1.6 million seed round in September 2011.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Every verifiable public component of the claim is corroborated by venture databases and contemporary reporting: Sift Science raised a $1.6 million seed round in September 2011, and then-investor Max Levchin was the lead investor. While public SEC filings and aggregate database entries record total offering amounts rather than itemizing individual angel checks (leaving the exact $1.0 million personal check allocation traceable directly to founder disclosures), all round totals, dates, and leadership designations align completely.

PitchBook records confirm Sift Science completed a $1.6 million seed round dated September 1, 2011.
Sift Science's official launch announcement (March 19, 2013) and contemporary press (The Next Web, The Wall Street Journal) explicitly state that Max Levchin led the company's seed round.
Venture tracking databases (Crunchbase, PitchBook, Dealroom) confirm the timing between August and October 2011 and confirm Levchin's lead investor role.

Checked against

[1] thenextweb.com [2] forgeglobal.com [3] sift.com [4] wsj.com [5] equitybee.com [6] pitchbook.com [7] smartkarma.com [8] dealroom.co

Sift Science SEC Form D seed round 2011 Sift Science 1.6 million seed round 2011 2012 Sift Science Max Levchin seed round 1.6 million September 2011 "Max Levchin" "Sift Science" "seed round" "Max Levchin" "$1M" OR "$1 million" "Sift Science"

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

Max Levchin Sift Science

⚑ Spot an error? Report it

More from Jason Tan

Opinion

Tan: Making Over $1M on Startup Equity Typically Requires Facebook-Scale Outcome

“You know, typically to make more than a million dollars at any company, it would require kind of a Facebook size outcome.”

Jason Tan Jan 28, 2018 ▶ 3:59 918 SaaS: Fraud Prevention Company Raises $54m, Passes 500 Customers

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Tan: Sift Science customers pay thousands up to $100,000 monthly

“Oh, it's probably going to be a in the minimum of a few thousand dollars per month. We have some customers paying us a 100,000 dollars per month.”

Jason Tan Jan 28, 2018 ▶ 2:32 918 SaaS: Fraud Prevention Company Raises $54m, Passes 500 Customers

Assertion Supported

Tan: Sift Science has raised approximately $54 million in total funding

“Oh, we raised about fifty four million dollars.”

Jason Tan Jan 28, 2018 ▶ 6:52 918 SaaS: Fraud Prevention Company Raises $54m, Passes 500 Customers

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Tan: Sift Science has approximately 500 paying customers

“We have, we're lucky to have quite a few just about 500”

Jason Tan Jan 28, 2018 ▶ 6:58 918 SaaS: Fraud Prevention Company Raises $54m, Passes 500 Customers

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Sift Science has more than doubled revenue annually for past few years

“We've been more than doubling our revenue for the last few years.”

Jason Tan Jan 28, 2018 ▶ 8:36 918 SaaS: Fraud Prevention Company Raises $54m, Passes 500 Customers

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Tan: Sift Science maintains an LTV to CAC ratio over 3:1

“I think that our LTVCAC is more than three to one.”

Jason Tan Jan 28, 2018 ▶ 10:51 918 SaaS: Fraud Prevention Company Raises $54m, Passes 500 Customers

Tan: Max Levchin personally invested $1M to lead Sift Science seed round

More from Jason Tan

Turn any episode into a week of clips.