In this digital era, organisations and consumers need to verify their identities online more than ever before. It can be for various purposes ranging from onboarding remote employees to create a safe space for gaming in the metaverse. Given that almost all businesses have moved online, a reliable identity verification solution is imperative. This makes it significant to have a trustworthy online identity verification service.
Estonian online identity verification startup, Veriff is well-known for its technique to verify the identity of people by analysing videos. Now, the premium global identity verification provider has secured $100 million in funding adding to the list of some mega funding rounds in Europe.
Estonia’s sixth unicorn
The investment round was led by Tiger Global and Alkeon alongside participation from existing investors Accel and IVP. With this, the overall funding raised by Veriff is now $200 million and it reaches a valuation of $1.5 billion and enters the unicorn club. Veriff joins Skype, Playtech, Wise, Bolt, Pipedrive, ID.me and Zego in Estonia’s billion-dollar tech company’s list.
The Estonian online identity verification startup plans to use the proceeds of this round to expand its global customer base and deliver reliable online identity verifications. Veriff will also use the funds to accelerate its global growth and invest in R&D to advance product expansion. Also, it will eyes to grow its sales and marketing teams to earn more global clients and build on its customer success programs. Talking about global growth, Veriff will expand its global workforce team. Currently, it is a team of 360 from nearly 46 different countries.
Kaarel Kotkas, CEO and founder of Veriff said. “The gigantic boom in digital services has increased the demand for IDV for any business online, and every person on this planet can be a user of Veriff. I’m proud of the Veriff team for leading the way after a massive year of growth and for securing Series C financing with our new investors Tiger and Alkeon.”
John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global commented, “Veriff has created an industry-leading product to ensure trust and safety online. Based on our research and customer calls, Veriff’s product performance leaves others far behind and should be used more widely by companies out there. We’re excited to support Veriff’s success and join their mission of making trust reliable and scalable online.”
Unique video-first approach
Veriff was founded by Kaarel Kotkas and Janer Gorohhov in 2015. As per the company, its unique, AI-powered identity verification and KYC solution do not compromise compliance and identity fraud. While its rival identity verification platform focuses on document data extraction and lightweight verifications, Veriff’s video-first approach expands the reach of its service capabilities across sectors and use cases.
By combining the video-first AI technology with data crosslinking, Veriff provides signs of identity fraud that basic data extraction or biometrics can miss. It operates with the aim to provide technology, which customers need to prevent fraud and stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.
Y Combinator-backed Veriff serves a global portfolio of internet businesses including fintech companies, sharing economy providers and marketplaces in the US, Europe and other places. Headquartered in Tallinn, it operates from Tartu in Estonia, New York, London and Barcelona.
Growth amidst pandemic
Amidst the pandemic, in 2021, Veriff rapidly increased verification volumes worldwide by over 8x while it was 20X in the US. With the growth in digital transactions online due to the pandemic, Veriff increased its verification volume in the financial services sector by 10x in 2021, thereby making it the primary identity verification provider for 95% of its financial services customers. Also, its customer growth has increased to 150% in customer growth in the same year. It has been used for the verification of users’ age to instill trust and safety in the growing digital metaverse environment.
