Onfido pulls in $50m in round led by Softbank and Salesforce
Identity verification platform Onfido has pulled in $50m in it’s funding round led by Softbank Investment and Salesforce Ventures.
Other participants to the round included M12 (Microsoft) Ventures, FinVC and others. This brings the company’s total capital raised to $100m. As part of the deal, former Salesforce chief sales officer and vice chairman Frank van Veenendaal will join the company’s board of directors.
Funds for the round have been earmarked for geographical expansion including Europe and South East Asia. Capital will also be used to help Onfido consolidate its position in the US market and increase product development.
Onfido enables consumers to verify their identity by simply taking and uploading a picture of an identity documents and a short video selfie. Its AI platform is able to validate both and ensure the person is who they claim.
Its technology automates checks on 4,500 document types across 195 countries, detecting anomalies without the need of human interaction.
The company has witnessed strong growth over the last year, which culminated in a 342 per cent year-over-year sales growth and 1,500 new customers. Some of its customers include Current, DraftKings, Europcar, Indiegogo, Remitly and Zipcar.
SBI Investment executive officer Tomoyuki Nii said, “4.5 billion records were breached in the first half of 2018, and McKinsey has predicted the identity verification-as-a-service market to hit $20 Billion by 2022. So Onfido is very well placed to solidify its position as the global leader in identity verification.
“We chose to invest in Onfido because they have proven their expertise at using artificial intelligence to effectively fight fraud, giving businesses a safe and secure way to scale their businesses online.”
The RegTech company has been on a spree of partnerships this year. Earlier in the month, it teamed up with IDValidation to help reduce the risk of synthetic identity fraud. The companies will work together to ensure the verification of social security numbers.
Other recent partnerships include deals with INTERPOL 2, 2nd Address, and RVshare, helping each of them improve their onboarding and identifying fake IDs.
Last year, Onfido was hand-selected for the RegTech 100, making the list for two consecutive years.
