Running criminal records checks on Uber drivers and other gig workers helped Checkr cofounder and CEO Daniel Yanisse grow his San Francisco-based background checking startup into an operation with a $5 billion valuation.

Now a new wave of white-collar fraud powered by generative artificial intelligence is supercharging the next stage of Checkr’s growth. Yanisse says that at least 40% of job and loan applications reviewed by his company contained inaccurate or faked employment or financial information, and fraudsters are increasingly using tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini to create increasingly convincing bogus documents like pay stubs.

“This year is the first time we saw large scale fraud happening in employment with some of those sophisticated generative AI fake job candidates applying to small startups and large companies,” Yanisse told Forbes in an interview.

Thanks to its expansion into white-collar employment history verification, Checkr’s revenue has grown to $800 million, up 14% from $700........

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