There’s now an ‘Uber for private investigators.’ Meet Trustify

About a year-and-a-half ago, Danny Boice was going through a “pretty bad divorce.”
He wanted to keep tabs on how his children were doing, so he hired a private investigator.
But it wasn’t that simple.
The former Speek CTO looked for listings on Google, finding websites that “look like they’re from the ’90s” and filling out contact forms, waiting for calls back.
“It’s really hard to figure out who’s legit and who’s not,” said Boice. “It was just a very skeazy experience.”

Then, the fees were alarmingly high: he was asked to pay a $1,500 retainer fee up front plus high hourly fees for which he never saw the results, he said.
That’s how he came upon the idea for Trustify — a startup that could make private eyes more widely available.
“I could democratize it to make it affordable, accessible, transparent,” he said.
The Georgetown-based startup runs a web and iOS app (with an Android version to come later this week) that connects users to a network of about 2,000 private investigators.
Customers pay $59, including the company’s $29 charge, per hour to hire the investigators, who have all undergone interviews and background checks.
To protect users’ privacy, the investigations are only stored in the app as long as they last; the login information is the only thing that stays in the system long term.
Trustify launched in March as FlimFlam. It has nearly ten employees and is currently raising a seed round, scheduled to close in July.

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Initially worried that Trustify would end up serving hordes of jealous boyfriends and girlfriends, Boice said he was surprised by the range of requests the app was receiving.

As it turns out, only about half of all cases involve a partner suspected of cheating.
Another common request, he said, is “jobs from people that are online daters.”
The typical story goes like this, Boice said: couple meets on Hinge, Tinder, Match.com, etc. Things are going great, until they start getting serious. Suddenly, guy or girl wonders, “OK, I met this person through the internet. What do I really know about this person?”
To alleviate their worries, they have a new app to turn to. Voilà, Boice says: Trustify.