The Verified system

Blue and gold checkmarks that prove a contact is a real, reachable person, and how to grow them.

About 7 minutes · Your people

Anyone can type a name into a database. Verified is how TenthAvenue proves one. Contacts can earn a checkmark that follows them everywhere: blue when their email and phone are both confirmed with real codes, gold when their identity has been checked against the actual tax authority or a reviewed ID. For anyone raising money, gold is the difference between a list and a book of real investors.

1What the checks mean

Blue check: The channels are real. This person confirmed their email with an emailed code and their phone with a texted code. Both become ways they can sign in. An auto-confirmed email never counts, so blue can't be faked.
Gold check: The person is real. Their tax ID matched the actual tax authority (the IRS in the US, and each country's own authority elsewhere), or a sponsor reviewed their government ID and recorded the decision. Gold carries over: once earned, an investor never re-proves identity for the next deal.
No check yet: Nothing wrong, just not proven. The hub below is how you invite them to fix that.

One phone number anchors exactly one account. Nobody can mint several "verified" people from the same handset.

The check travels; the number stays private. The phone someone confirms is never copied onto your record, and never replaces a number you already have. On their card, the phone line says confirmed when they proved the number you hold to you (a code from your verification page, or a text from that number), and confirmed elsewhere when they proved a phone some other way. The blue check shows either way.

2Where the checks show up

On contact rows and cards. The mark sits right next to the name, everywhere the name appears.
On investor rosters. Sponsors see at a glance who on a raise is proven.
In the investor portal. Each investor sees their own badge and exactly what's left to earn the next one.

3Grow your verified book (the Verified hub)

Open Verified in the left menu.
Read your coverage. Gold count, blue count, and the percentage of your book that's verified, with the verified and unverified lists side by side.
Press Get everyone verified. Everyone unverified gets a gentle invitation, sent in small staggered batches of about twenty on a timer, so a big push never spikes your sending and hurts your email reputation. People who are almost done get a finish-verifying nudge first.

Verified

Gold: 38

Identity proven

Blue: 214

Email + phone proven

Coverage: 72%

of your book

Invite the rest

Text fallback

For bounced emails, consent-gated, waits until texting is approved

Holding

The hub. The invites pace themselves and pause anything they shouldn't send yet.

The text fallback for bounced emails holds itself until your texting registration is approved. You don't have to remember the order of operations.

4Verified details are locked

What locks: A contact's main email once they confirmed it, and their main phone number once they proved that very number to you (a code from your verification page, or a text from it). A lock icon sits beside it with "Verified. Request an update from the contact." Their other emails and numbers never lock: add another one any time.
Request update: On the contact's card, press Request update. We send the contact a secure link, by email to their verified address or, if they lost that inbox, by text to their verified number. It works once and for 24 hours. They enter the new email or number and confirm it (a link to the new address, a code to the new number), and their old one stays on the card as another email or number.
After a phone call: When there is no way to reach them, call them. An owner or admin can then change it by hand from the same dialog, with a note on the call and a fresh two-factor code. The new email or number starts unverified (a new email takes their phone's verification along with the old address), and the change is recorded with your name.
A new email starts over: Whenever a contact's email changes to a different address, the verification of their phone goes with the old address, unless the contact proved the new address themselves. That way nobody can carry one person's proof onto someone else's email. A contact who has only ever texted you keeps that when you add their first email, and a text from their number or your verification page earns it back.
Imports and automations: An import, a sync or an automation never replaces a verified email or number. A different one it brings is added to the contact's other emails or numbers instead, and the import's summary counts them.

5How a person actually gets verified

They open their invitation and confirm email and phone. Two codes, two minutes. That's blue.
Investors verify identity during onboarding. The TenthYards flow checks their tax ID against the authority in one tap. A typo keeps them on the screen to fix it and retry, and there's a continue-anyway path that flags it for your review instead of blocking them.
Or you review an ID yourself. An uploaded government ID is stored encrypted. You mark it verified or not from the investor's passport, and the decision is recorded with your name on it.