Cork, Ireland-based valid8Me, a digital identity and customer onboarding SaaS platform, announced on Wednesday that it has raised €12.5M in a fresh round of funding from new investor Grant Thornton Ireland.
valid8Me says it plans to increase its workforce to 60+ people by the end of the year 2023 in order to support the growing business and capitalise on the enormous market opportunity.
CEO of valid8Me, Patrick Horgan, says, “Our platform addresses an enormous challenge for businesses by enabling enhanced AML compliance in a radically future-proof and cost-effective way while offering their clients a more secure and convenient experience.”
“This investment from Grant Thornton Ireland, combined with their global reach and multisector expertise, will act as a transformational partner in accelerating valid8Me’s ambitious high-growth strategy,” adds Horgan.
The investor
Grant Thornton Ireland is a provider of tax planning, advisory, and compliance advice ranging from corporate and personal tax. Business consultancy, data analysis, financial statement audit, tax reporting, lease accounting, and advisory support are among the services offered by the company.
Mick McAteer, Managing Partner of Grant Thornton Ireland, says, “We view the valid8Me platform as complementary to a number of our service lines and specifically addresses the needs of our clients across a number of sectors including financial services, legal, accounting, wealth management and real estate among others. We are excited to build our product and service offering in these sectors and bring real innovative solutions to our clients.”
Steve Tennant, Head of Financial Services Advisory at Grant Thornton Ireland, adds, “KYC and the process by which businesses look to onboard and verify client identities is broken. We deal with an increasing number of clients who are extremely challenged by the resource overhead in complying with AML & KYC regulatory obligations. valid8Me offers an approach to solving this problem and importantly optimising the customer and client experience. We use valid8Me ourselves and have first-hand experience of how it has transformed our client onboarding processes.”
Transforming customer onboarding
Customer onboarding has become a major frustration for consumers and businesses alike. As a result of siloed thinking, organisations now spend an excessive amount of money and time in manually reviewing, updating, and maintaining documentation. For instance, the typical bank spends $60M annually on Know-Your-Customer compliance.
This is where valid8Me wants to make a difference.
Launched in 2021, people and businesses can safely save, share, and manage their vital Know-Your-Customer-related data by using valid8Me. The company invented and promotes reusable digital identification, assisting organisations in streamlining identity verification and onboarding procedures with assurance and control.
The startup’s platform offers an enhanced proof of identity and onboarding experience:
- By employing reusable digital identity vaults that ease the hassle of finding, maintaining, and updating Know-Your-Client papers for organisations, valid8Me claims that it is the only platform that decreases customer onboarding expenses by up to 50 per cent and onboarding timeframes by up to 90 per cent.
- With its reusable digital identity vault approach, the platform lowers risk and exposure for enterprises regarding data protection by reducing the administrative burden of handling sensitive data.
- Customers that create a valid8Me profile have a reusable identity that can be easily verified across any business or industry.
- The chance of fake papers and financial crime happening is decreased through digital onboarding.
- More than 10,000 distinct document templates from 248 different nations and territories are supported by the platform.
Recognised as solving Know-Your-Customer challenges by allowing businesses and individuals to create reusable digital identities on a trusted network, valid8Me won the Irish Funds FinTech Factor award and the NICSA NOVA Product Innovation award within its first 12 months.
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