# Kurt Ruppel

> Kurt Ruppel is the Co-Founder and CTO of Middesk, the business identity platform that helps financial institutions, fintechs, and marketplaces verify and onboard businesses in seconds rather than weeks. A UC Berkeley cognitive science alumnus turned engineer, he built his technical chops at Zendesk and Checkr before co-founding Middesk with Kyle Mack in 2018. The company went through Y Combinator's Winter 2019 batch, secured a $4M seed led by Accel and Sequoia before Demo Day ended, and raised a $57M Series B in 2022—bringing total funding to over $77M. Ruppel leads Middesk's technical vision, focusing on primitives and forward concepts that transform raw business data into actionable intelligence for the financial ecosystem.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CTO at Middesk
- **Organizations:** Middesk, Y Combinator (W19), Checkr, Zendesk
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BA, Cognitive Science, University of California, Berkeley
- **Known for:** Co-founded Middesk (YC W19), which has raised over $77M from Accel, Sequoia, Insight Partners, and Canapi Ventures, Led technical development of Middesk's business identity platform, now used by two of the three largest U.S. banks, Middesk named to Forbes Fintech 50 (2024)

## Career timeline

- **Pre-2014** — Studied cognitive science at UC Berkeley
- **2014-2016** — Senior Software Engineer at Zendesk, San Francisco
- **2016-2018** — Engineering Manager at Checkr, working alongside future co-founder Kyle Mack
- **2018** — Co-founded Middesk with Kyle Mack, applying learnings from Checkr to business identity
- **2019** — Middesk accepted into Y Combinator Winter 2019; secured $4M seed round from Accel and Sequoia before Demo Day
- **2021** — Middesk raises Series A; platform scaling across fintech and banking customers including Plaid, Affirm, Bluevine
- **2022** — Middesk raises $57M Series B led by Insight Partners and Canapi Ventures; total funding reaches $77M
- **2024** — Middesk named to Forbes Fintech 50 list; 600+ customers, 150,000+ businesses verified weekly
- **2025** — Middesk named a Fast Company World's Most Innovative Company; Banking Tech Startup of the Year

## Achievements

- Co-founded Middesk (YC W19), which has raised over $77M from Accel, Sequoia, Insight Partners, and Canapi Ventures
- Led technical development of Middesk's business identity platform, now used by two of the three largest U.S. banks
- Middesk named to Forbes Fintech 50 (2024)
- Middesk named a Fast Company World's Most Innovative Company (2025)
- Middesk named Banking Tech Startup of the Year (Banking Tech Awards 2025)
- Middesk named Best Data Product for Lenders by Tearsheet
- Scaled Middesk from a two-person YC team to 180+ employees
- Platform verifies 150,000+ businesses every week
- Featured on Sequoia Capital's founder network

## Latest updates

- **2025-03** — Hosted BEV Break webinar on closing the sole proprietor gap in business identity, sharing strategies for verifying the hardest-to-verify segment of businesses
- **2025-03** — Middesk named a Fast Company World's Most Innovative Company for 2025
- **2025-02** — Middesk named Banking Tech Startup of the Year at the Banking Tech Awards 2025
- **2025-Q2** — Authored Middesk Q2 2025 product updates covering web data enhancement for verification, automated TIN Match fallback, and expanded adverse media coverage
- **2024** — Middesk named to Forbes Fintech 50 list for the first time

## Links

- Website: https://www.kurtruppel.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtruppel
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/kurtruppel
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kurtruppel/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/kurt-ruppel
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-25