Tallinn-based Veriff is an online identity verification startup. It has developed a technique to verify the identity of people by analysing videos. It combines all possible ID technologies, including social ID, device ID, facial recognition, and optical character recognition, to authenticate if a person is who he or she claims to be, based on the data provided.
Veriff raises funding
In a recent development, the identity verification startup has announced that it raised $69M (approx €57.6M) in its Series B round of funding led by investment firms IVP and Accel.
With this development, Jules Maltz of IVP and Matt Weigand of Accel will join Veriff’s Board of Directors. The raised capital brings Veriff’s total funding to $92.8M, to date.
The strongest identity verification service
Founded in 2015 by Kaarel Kotkas and Janer Gorohhov, Veriff claims to have the strongest identity verification service available online. The company serves in various sectors, including fintech, crypto, and mobility.
The company’s technology leverages more than 1,000 data points to give transparent responses and provide security and trust for businesses.
Veriff claims that the other players in the space have focused on document data extraction and lightweight verifications. In contrast, Veriff’s video-first verification approach expands the reach of its service capabilities across sectors and use cases.
“Our objective, AI-powered decision engine utilises machine learning to analyse more than 9,000 variations of government-issued IDs from over 190 countries in 36 different languages,” the company mentions in the press release.
Use of the capital
The raised funds will help Veriff to continue building within the fast-growing market opportunity in the US, and to build a stronger source of identity online than government-issued IDs alone currently provide.
“Veriff is a global IDV powerhouse,” says Matt Weigand, partner at Accel. “We look forward to supporting Veriff’s efforts to help companies prevent online crime and establish a vital aspect of their business: building trust with customers.”
One step ahead of cybercriminals
According to the company, unlike other IDV solution providers, Veriff’s IDV technology was crafted in Estonia, a country with a population of only 1.3 million and a national ID system that enables its citizens to pay taxes, vote in elections, view healthcare records, and access financial services online.
Veriff claims that its video-first AI technology combined with data crosslinking provides signs of identity fraud that basic data extraction, a still image, or biometrics, can miss. The company aims to provide technology that customers need to prevent fraud and stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.
In 2020, the IDV market saw massive growth. With consumers losing roughly $56B annually as a result of identity theft, the IDV market is seeing significant demand as a result of the pandemic-driven accelerated digitisation across the globe.
Veriff experienced a 6X growth in annual recurring revenue in 2020, identifying and stopping identity fraud across the globe for a number of top Fortune 500 companies.
Kaarel Kotkas, Founder & CEO of Veriff, says, “At Veriff, we are building trust and transparency in the online world, and our round marks the highest Series B amount raised to date in the IDV market, putting us one step closer to eliminating widespread identity fraud while helping businesses grow and go digital.”
“Veriff is considered a “secret weapon” to fight against fraud and solve the hassle of online identity verification. Now backed by top investors in the world, we look forward to partner up with more companies to solve their identity verification challenges and work towards bringing more trust online,” he further adds.
Veriff investors include Y Combinator, Mosaic Ventures, Nordic Ninja, Accel, IVP, and others. With offices in the US, UK, and Estonia, the company has a team of more than 250 people from 34 different nationalities.
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