Identity verification provider Onfido announces $30M in funding, led by Crane Venture Partners with support from Microsoft Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and other current investors. The funding follows a Series B round of $25M in April 2016, allowing the company to take its identity verification technology global.
With just a photo of an identity document and a selfie, users can now gain access to a host of online platforms such as Square, Zipcar, and Revolut. Onfido’s machine learning technology enables companies to automate checks on over 600 document types across 192 countries, detecting anomalies automatically, and using human experts to verify outliers. This enables high-growth companies to rely on Onfido’s identity verification technology as they scale, seamlessly onboarding more customers while reducing the risk of fraud.
Husayn Kassai, CEO and co-founder of Onfido, stated, “The world is moving online, but the means to carry out identity verification is frozen in time in an offline world. Millions of people who don’t have a credit history – or just have a thin one – are unable to access everyday services. With our identity verification technology, those underserved people can access online services they need, and businesses can gain access to a whole new group of trusted customers.”
Kassai continued, “Just as money was required to oil the wheels of commerce in previous centuries, your legal identity is pivotal to enable transactions as we move to a digital world. As identity verification technology continues to evolve, it will become the key to remotely unlocking a huge range of products globally, from banking and travel services through to voting and healthcare.”
This latest round brings Onfido’s funding to over $60M to date, including previous investment from Wellington Partners, Idinvest, and CrunchFund. The new funding will primarily be channelled into research and development in machine learning technology, and to meet increasing customer demand in the US and other international markets.
Scott Sage, Partner at Crane, explained, “We invest in companies that have an ‘unfair advantage’ in data. Onfido has proven itself with incredible traction in Europe and strong demand in the US for its identity verification technology today. Onfido has one of the strongest machine learning teams we’ve come across from all over Europe, and we’re excited to see how they continue to combine data, image verification and fraud prevention technologies to enable businesses to scale efficiently and safely.”
Onfido, headquartered in London, has offices in San Francisco, New York, Lisbon and New Delhi. Founded in 2012, the identity verification company has grown from 25 to 150 employees in just over 2 years, while growing revenue 5x annually for the past three years.
“Smartphones are pervasive, powerful tools for accelerating the adoption of identity verification processes,” said Itxaso del Palacio, investment partner, Microsoft Ventures. “Onfido’s reliable and scalable intelligent services are helping millions of unbanked people worldwide access financial services by allowing them to open bank accounts, be verified for a job and more with the touch of a button. We’re proud to support its efforts with our investment.”