Vouched secures $4.5M for selfie biometrics in hot remote onboarding market

Steadily rising demand for remote onboarding and compliance with know your customer and anti money-laundering regulations has led to a $4.5 million fundraising round for Vouched and success in new markets for Onfido, while SmartSearch and IDology have unveiled new capabilities. Customer wins for selfie biometric or ID document scanning have been announced by Acuant, Yoti, iDenfy and Smart Engines, while Shufti Pro has picked up a pair of awards for its identity verification and authentication technologies.

Vouched fundraising

Vouched has closed a $4.5 million funding round, and plans to use the cash to accelerate the growth of the company’s selfie biometrics and document verification.

The investment was led by digital entrepreneur Darrell Cavens, with participation from banking and legal services firms, according to a company announcement.

The company serves more than 150 companies across numerous verticals, and says demand for its digital ID verification service has been driven by the ongoing migration to digital interactions, and accelerated by the pandemic.

“Governments, businesses and consumers alike are increasingly moving their activities online,” comments John Baird, co-founder and CEO of Vouched. “We’re standing at the precipice of a purely digital world, and being able to verify identity online is both crucial, and increasingly complicated: the traditional understanding of identity, which rests wholly on in-person examination, no longer exists. Yet, access to our most important services – banking, healthcare, employment, government aid – requires it. There is a huge need for fast, rigorous, accurate and compliant online verification. That’s what Vouched does.”

Baird says Vouched’s biometric technology can be used for identity-based transactions from account opening to hotel check-ins and receiving medical information from a healthcare professional.

The company also raised $3 million in late-2020 to bring its biometrics to the European market and reach more customers.

Onfido sees success in international expansion push

Onfido says its recent earnings gains have included significant expansion of its face biometrics in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), with a 212 percent increase in revenue from the region in the first half of 2021.

The company announced in July it has passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Onfido appointed Phillip Sertel as regional leader for DACH and Eastern Europe in July as well, in which role he will lead the company’s regional team and seek to expand Onfido’s partner network.

Meanwhile in Singapore, Tiger Brokers has signed with Onfido to implement automated customer onboarding with selfie video biometrics.

The trading platform will use Onfido’s technology to verify users quickly and efficiently, while complying with KYC regulations, according to the announcement. Tiger Brokers expects to be able to onboard customers in a few hours instead of multiple business days, based on the new partnership.

New capabilities

A new document verification and selfie biometric tool has been launched by SmartSearch to fight against global money laundering.

The new SmartDoc system combines face biometrics with expert analysis the company says is comparable to that provided by border security officials.

SmartSearch CEO John Dobson says the company has already built a reputation for effective AML and KYC checks with its digital verification solution.

“The new SmartDoc solution incorporates facial recognition to identify forged ID documents which include photographs, such as passports, driving licences, work permits amongst others,” he states.

“SmartDoc will ensure regulated businesses can securely authenticate customer identities, preventing fraud and allowing them to remain compliant with AML legislation.”

IDology has likewise extended its digital identity verification to any point in the customer journey without integrating extra endpoints or scoring systems with a new API.

The ExpectID Flex API also enables businesses to request less personally identifiable information (PII) when verifying their customers and conducting KYC checks, according to the announcement.

“ExpectID Flex API is a leap in identity customization in that it establishes more trust with new and returning customers through low-friction workflows by reviewing details that users may be more comfortable providing, greatly improving lead conversion rates among thin-file and underbanked individuals,” comments IDology CEO Christina Luttrell.

Customer wins

Acuant has signed up Finaptic, which bills itself as Canada’s only end-to-end provider of white-labelled banking-as-a-service, for remote automated onboarding with biometrics and document verification for KYC and AML compliance through its Trusted Identity Platform.

Finaptic gives its customers real-time, event-driven technology they can use to embed a range of banking products into their branded online and mobile channels.

Swotties has selected Yoti to provide face biometrics for remote identity verification of online tutors, speeding up the process and providing safety assurance for the children using the app.

The partnership allows Swotties to take advantage of Yoti’s existing pool of UK students already verified, who make up many of the ten million Yoti app downloads.

iDenfy has been selected by Monneo to provide quick, safe and easy identity verification for bank account onboarding with selfie biometrics and a government ID check.

Monneo was prompted to make the move by an increasing number of applications for its international payments and ecommerce services being delayed by its manual and in-person processes.

Smart Engines has won a contract with BaltBet to provide its Smart ID Engine to help identify sports-betting customers with ID document scanning.

The implementation allows BaltBet users to autofill form fields with information collected from a photo of their identity document, and reduces the time required for user onboarding, according to the company announcement.

Shufti Pro awarded for identity verification and authentication

Shufti Pro has won Gold and Bronze Prizes from the 2021 International Business Awards as Company of the Year for the ‘Computer Services – Small’ and ‘Financial Services – Small’ categories, respectively.

The ‘Stevie’ Awards honor achievements and positive contributions from businesses around the world, and for 2021 were drawn from a pool of 3,700 entries.

Article Topics

Acuant  |  authentication  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  funding  |  iDenfy  |  identity verification  |  IDology  |  KYC  |  Onfido  |  selfie biometrics  |  Shufti Pro  |  Smart Engines  |  SmartSearch  |  Vouched  |  Yoti