Michelangelo Frigo

Michelangelo Frigo is a technology entrepreneur and privacy advocate who founded Zyphe, a decentralized identity verification company revolutionizing KYC and AML compliance. Based in San Francisco, Frigo brings over 10 years of enterprise technology experience to the emerging field of decentralized identity management, where he advocates for blockchain-based solutions that protect user privacy while meeting regulatory requirements.

Professional Experience

Founder, Zyphe
Founded the San Francisco-based decentralized identity verification platform alongside Charlene Wang and Manuel Tumiati. Under Frigo's leadership, Zyphe has raised a couple of million from investors including āltitude, Azimut Holding, Everywhere Ventures and ROI Ventures. The company serves over 190 countries with 99.8% document matching accuracy, processing verification requests in as little as 15 seconds while distributing encrypted data across 60,000+ nodes using AES-GCM-256 encryption.

Prior to Zyphe, Michelangelo built three startups, achieving two exits. As co-founder of a product-tech venture, he was responsible for performance marketing, operations, and supply chain management, scaling the business from zero to €1.9M in sales within 12 months. He later launched a direct-to-consumer food-tech company, where he led product development, branding, and go-to-market execution, growing revenues to €180K per month in just 8 months before exiting.

Michelangelo began his career as a Product Manager in a large multinational company, leading an innovation team tasked with piloting new digital initiatives and product strategies across global retail operations. He also served as a university lecturer in Rome, teaching courses on decentralized identity, NFTs, and blockchain systems.

Industry Leadership and Expertise

Frigo's technical expertise centers on decentralized identity systems that eliminate central points of failure common in traditional KYC providers. His solutions address core inefficiencies of legacy identity systems, achieving 70% higher completion rates and enhanced security compared to centralized alternatives.

He regularly speaks at industry conferences and co-hosts webinars on emerging threats to digital identity security, including sessions on "Deepfakes, AI, and Data Breaches." His thought leadership focuses on the intersection of privacy, compliance, and business efficiency in an increasingly digital economy.

Philosophy and Vision

Frigo advocates that "everyone has the right to take ownership of their digital identity and control which data is shared with what companies." This user-centric philosophy drives his technology development and business strategy, representing a fundamental shift from current models where businesses collect and store personal information without transparent user control.

His companies target the growing market need for privacy-preserving verification solutions that meet regulatory requirements without exposing organizations to data breach liabilities. As privacy regulations tighten globally and data breach costs escalate, Frigo's decentralized approach offers businesses a path to compliance that enhances rather than compromises user privacy.