Finsphere has landed a $9 million second round of financing from some heavy hitters, a significant cash infusion that follows a $10 million round just 14 months ago. The company -- which now employs more than 25 people in Bellevue, Toronto, California and the United Kingdom -- is developing a product to help banks and credit card companies reduce identity fraud.

The product -- described as "mobile Identity protection" -- is completed and is now in tests with undisclosed customers.

Chief Executive Mike Buhrmann, the former McCaw Cellular executive who went on to sell @Mobile to Software.com for about $550 million in stock, isn't saying much more than that.

"I'd like to remain stealth as not to educate any potential competitors," he said via email.

Nonetheless, Buhrmann has lined up some deep-pocketed investors for the venture.

Mohr Davidow Ventures, Shasta Ventures and Bezos Expeditions participated in the original funding, while a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week also lists Paul Bialek of Frazier Technology Ventures as a board member.

Here's more from the company's Web site on the offering.

Mobile Identity Protection from Finsphere excels at clearly identifying the good transactions from the bad, reducing false positives and increasing authorization rates.  MIP excels at preventing identity theft and protecting consumers by reducing the amount of confidential customer information used in fraud management and requiring less involvement by the end user in authentication.   

Identity fraud obviously is a big time problem. A study released earlier this year indicated that the number of identity fraud cases increased 22 percent last year, with 9.9 million Americans affected by the crime.

John Cook is co-founder of TechFlash. Follow him on Twitter @johnhcook.