About Veref
Remote hiring deserves the same trust in-person had.
We are building Veref because every assumption remote interviews rest on has broken in the last eighteen months. We think verified interviews, portable candidate identity, and trusted references are the way back.
Our story
Why we started Veref.
Veref was founded in London in 2026 by Poya Farighi and Vincent Tellier. Between us we have spent a decade and a half inside hiring: at BlackRock, State Street, and Legal & General on the buyer side, and at Vitay on the vendor side (acquired by SureSwift Capital in 2021).
The thing that pushed us to start Veref was not deepfakes in the abstract. It was watching talent teams we respect lose whole quarters to interview fraud they could not prove. By the time the problem was visible in their numbers, the damage was already in their P&L.
We think the durable answer is a trust layer: one place where identity, interview integrity, and references all live, shared between employers, owned by the candidate. That is what we are building.
Values
The principles we will not trade.
Trust layer, not surveillance
Candidates benefit from Veref. They verify once and carry the trust with them. That only works if the product is candidate-positive, and it always will be.
Human-in-the-loop, always
No automatic rejections. No black-box scoring that effectively rejects. Every signal is evidence for a recruiter to weigh. This is an ethical and a legal commitment.
Evidence over verdicts
Every flag ships with the raw clip, transcript, and timestamp. Recruiters see what we saw and decide. No vendor magic.
Team
The people behind Veref.
Poya Farighi
Founder and CEO
Previously founder of Vitay (acquired by SureSwift Capital in 2021). Background at BlackRock, State Street, and Legal & General. London-based.
Vincent Tellier
Co-founder and CTO
Leading engineering and platform. Building Veref’s browser-native interview room, verification pipeline, and the candidate-owned Passport.
Headquartered in
London, United Kingdom
General enquiries
hello@veref.workFollow along
linkedin.com/company/verefWant to work with us or for us?
Customers, start with a demo. Job seekers, see the careers page.