<div class="portada"><div class="meta">Menteia · Menteia KYC · October 2026 · Confidential</div>

# Y Combinator application (raw draft)

**Menteia KYC** — AI identity verification against INE and RENAPO in under 2 minutes, via link, no app, pay per use.</div>


Answers ready to paste into the YC form (Winter 2027 closes on **Nov 2, 2026**, 8 pm Pacific time; confirm at ycombinator.com/apply). Only real data as of Oct 28, 2026; where there is no data we say so. At the end, the critique a partner would make.

Criteria used: ycinsight.com/apply (what partners look for in each question), ycinsight.com/yc-deal and ycinsight.com/yc-request-for-startups.

## Company

### Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Identity checks against Mexico's INE in 2 minutes (49 characters)

### What is your company going to make?

Menteia KYC verifies a person in under 2 minutes from a link: reads the INE voter ID or passport, runs liveness, matches the face to the ID and checks the official voter roll (INE) and CURP registry (RENAPO). The client gets an approve/decline by API and signed webhook. Pay per use, no minimums.

## Progress

### How far along are you?

Launched in September 2026. ~950 verifications and ~718 decisions through 6-Oct-2026 for one paying client group (INXEL, 3 mobile brands). Price today: ~US$0.40 + VAT per verification. Revenue is bundled with SAVANT in ~US$3.2k/month.

### How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time?

~1 month in production. ~3,600 lines of Node plus our own Python face-matching service. We had a data-loss incident on 6-Oct and rebuilt with a hot standby and daily snapshots.

## Idea

### Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise? How do you know people need what you're making?

Our telecom client had to identify every new line holder and the global vendors (Incode, MetaMap, Truora) charged in dollars with minimums. We built a Mexico-specific flow and they switched. Evidence: they pay per verification. One client only.

### Who are your competitors? What do you understand about your business that they don't?

Incode (raised at a US$1.25 B valuation in 2021), MetaMap, Truora, Didit; local validators like Verificamex that only query sources; and in-branch onboarding. What we understand: in Mexico the INE card itself (front, back, QR vs MRZ, theft reports) is the fraud surface, and small fintechs and MVNOs can't pay global minimums.

### How do or will you make money? How much could you make?

Per verification (US$0.40–1.20 by volume) plus white-label plans. MarketsandMarkets sizes identity verification in Mexico at US$369 M (2025). At US$0.60 average, 45k verifications/month is ~US$27k MRR.

### Tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered.

Pending from the logs: share of attempts blocked for photocopies/screens vs real fraud. (We will not invent it.)

## Founders

### Founders

Three co-founders: Rafael Herrera (CEO/CFO), Vladimir Díaz (CTO, software engineer, 20 years, PhD in business competitiveness and innovation from IQS–Ramon Llull, advised Ford, CANTV, Google and Globant) and Francisco D'Angelo Ohep (lawyer, LLM in international business law, AI-law specialist from Universidad de Salamanca). Vladimir wrote the code.

## Numbers YC will work out

| Question | Honest answer |
| --- | --- |
| Default alive? | No. Real revenue is a fraction of ~US$3.2k/month; costs per verification include third-party registry lookups. |
| Does it fit a 2026 RFS? | Fits 'Vertical AI for compliance-heavy industries (financial)'. |
| Valuation we would ask for outside YC | US$2,500,000 pre-money |
| What YC offers | US$500k: US$125k for 7% (≈ US$1.79 M post) + US$375k on an uncapped SAFE with MFN |

## Blunt critique (what a partner would attack)
- Good market, weak traction story: one month, one customer and a data-loss incident. A partner will ask 'why would a bank pick you after losing data?'. You need a concrete answer (postmortem, controls, certification).
- The price (~US$0.40) reflects reselling official data sources, not software. YC will see a low margin; show what each verification costs and how much is left.
- Without liveness certification (iBeta) and a final privacy notice, no bank or regulated fintech will sign.
- It competes with Incode, which was born in Mexico and is worth more than a billion dollars: you need to say why a small customer would not use Incode.

## What to do in the next 8 weeks
- Split out KYC revenue and calculate margin per verification.
- Sign 3 new customers (fintech, SOFIPO, MVNO).
- Start iBeta level 1 certification.
- Publish the incident postmortem.