Digital identity platform Yoti has raised £8m in an equity funding round, which has seen the company’s valuation hit the £65m mark.
The London-based startup raised the capital from existing angel investors and two of the company’s three founders, Robin Tombs and Noel Hayden.
Founded in 2014, Yoti offers a free app for consumers that enables them to prove their identity to businesses. They can also use the app to prove their age on a night out or at supermarket self-checkouts. By using advanced hybrid encryption to secure data, the app can also be used to verify the details of people online and to securely login to websites without having to remember a password.
Yoti claims its approach to data minimisation and secure data storage will help businesses address the upcoming challenges surrounding GDPR.
Robin Tombs, founder and CEO of Yoti said “We’re giving everyone a simpler and safer way to prove their identity and protect themselves from everyday issues which cost time, money and emotional distress. After three years of hard work by the team, we’re very excited that over 4,000 people a day are installing Yoti, and we hope millions of people will benefit from our approach to digital identity.
“This funding round will enable us to accelerate our UK growth and respond to the significant international interest that Yoti is attracting from businesses worldwide. There are already 3 billion smartphone users globally and we, at Yoti, believe many of them over the next five years will choose to use a digital identity like Yoti.”
Users take a selfie and scan a photo ID with their smartphone to create their digital identity. Yoti then uses both facial recognition technology and a security team based in the UK to match individuals to their photo IDs and to verify the integrity of the information.
Yoti use advanced hybrid encryption to protect data, meaning only the individual can access their data. This means there is no honeypot of user profiles that can be targeted by hackers, and Yoti has no way of accessing any of the user data or tracking user activity. Businesses can integrate with Yoti’s identity platform via their suite of SDKs in 2-4 hours or in minutes according to company.
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