Vram Ismailyan dedicated almost 14 years to Wells Fargo, where he was responsible for presenting payment infrastructure solutions to Fortune 500 clients. Although he consistently ranked among the top performers in the payments group, he was frequently frustrated by the bank’s outdated technology.
“I would spend anywhere from five to ten hours just getting ready for meetings with clients,” he shared with TechCrunch. “It required me to navigate through a dozen or more systems to collect the necessary data, interpret it, and finally compile it into a PowerPoint presentation.”
Kevin Miyamoto, a colleague, faced similar challenges with Wells Fargo’s technology. Even though he oversaw $900 billion in annual client payments, he relied solely on Excel spreadsheets to manage his entire account portfolio, rather than using a dedicated CRM system.
Fed up with the inefficient tools at Wells Fargo, Ismailyan and Miyamoto joined forces in 2021 to create Identifee—a software solution tailored for commercial bankers, equipped with all the features they had long desired. Their company is now among the Top 20 finalists in the Startup Battlefield contest at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.
Having personally experienced the limitations of legacy systems at a major bank, Ismailyan and Miyamoto realized that smaller financial institutions often face even greater technological hurdles.
“If you need to access any customer information, you might have to log into ten different platforms, export mismatched data into Excel, and only then begin your analysis,” Miyamoto explained. “It’s an extremely time-consuming process.”
Identifee aims to enhance bankers’ efficiency by integrating the features of several disconnected internal tools into a unified platform.
The startup’s offering is composed of several modular components, which clients can either purchase separately or as a comprehensive package. These modules include a CRM, a business intelligence system for monitoring customer information, and a sales enablement tool for producing reports and presentations.
“A community bank could replicate what Identifee does, but it would require buying Salesforce, Seismic, Power BI, and Tableau,” Miyamoto noted. “Alternatively, you can use our solution, which brings all those capabilities together in one platform.”
Some of Identifee’s features are powered by artificial intelligence. For example, the platform’s AI assistant can help complete RFP forms, ensuring compliance with each bank’s risk and regulatory requirements.
Ismailyan and Miyamoto assert that Identifee is the only solution developed specifically for commercial banks and credit unions—a market segment in the U.S. that includes more than 8,800 institutions.
Identifee has already gained significant traction in the banking industry, with over 170 clients on board, including prominent organizations such as Silicon Valley Bank, First Fidelity Bank, and Comerica.
The company has secured approximately $5 million in seed investment from backers like Ocean Azul Partners, 10X Capital, and Gaingels.
When questioned about why more startups aren’t addressing inefficiencies in commercial banking technology, Miyamoto replied, “Many people are aware of these challenges, but few actually launch companies to solve them the way Vram and I have.”
If you’d like to hear directly from Identifee and explore dozens of other startups, listen to their pitches, and attend talks across four stages, join us at Disrupt in San Francisco from October 27 to 29. Find out more here.
